A Visit to the Doctor

Copyright (C) 2011 Robert S. Rosson. All rights reserved.

The encounter described below was told to me by a physician friend.  It illustrates many of the problems plaguing today’s medical care.

I enter the doctor’s waiting room 15 minutes before my appointment. I sign in and the receptionist copies my insurance cards for the ninth time.   I fill out a lengthy questionnaire designed to be entered automatically into the electronic record.  I then sign the privacy form without reading it.

I sit down and unfold my New York Times.  I get through most of it before I realize that 45 minutes have passed.  Finally a medical assistant appears and calls out “Doctor, you may come in now”. 

“It’s about time” I say, irritably.

 “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says as she guides me into a tiny examining room that would be inadequate for a monk’s cell.  The room is dominated by a large computer screen on a movable bracket attached to the wall.  After she checks my weight and blood pressure she leaves, assuring me the doctor would be in soon. Another half hour goes by during which I wish I had brought something else to read.

Finally the doctor enters greeting me with “Hi Bill, how’s retirement treating you?” 

“Great,” I say.

He disappears behind the monitor, eliminating any chance of eye contact. I tell him I’m there because of a cough that has persisted for six weeks after a common cold.  He asks some questions, all the time typing away on the keyboard.

He then examines my chest, listening with his stethoscope through my shirt and sweater. I can’t resist asking him if he can hear anything this way. He assures me that with his electronic stethoscope he can hear quite well and that my lungs are clear.

He writes a prescription for an expensive cough medicine that isn’t covered by my insurance. I decide I’ll pick up a cheap over-the-counter preparation. I ask if a chest x-ray might be a good idea.  As he goes out the door he says it’s not necessary because my “lungs are clear.” I glance at my watch.  Total “face” time with the doctor is 11 minutes.

When the cough persists for another two weeks I order my own chest x-ray:

RADIOLOGY REPORT. “There is a five centimeter oval mass in the right upper lobe, adjacent to the mediastinum.  The appearance is consistent with a primary neoplasm of the lung.”

Published originally in YJHM January 23, 2011