This afternoon, I took Joshua in to an Urgent Care clinic because he's been sick for a couple days and I wanted to get him checked out before the weekend to make sure he didn't need to get on antibiotics. The doctor thinks it's just a virus that should get better in a day or two, so that was good news. Also, the Urgent Care in Lincoln is amazingly clean and efficient. We were in and out in less than an hour. I attribute this to the overall awesomeness of Lincoln, where even Apria rocks.
Here's where the rant comes in: First, bedside manner. When we were going through the general list of Joshua's symptoms, you could tell that the doctor was kind of on autopilot. That's fine - it's Friday afternoon and she's probably ready to get home to her family and/or knock back an Appletini when five o'clock rolls around. She's probably dealt with thousands of toddler viruses and ear infections and can diagnose and treat these in her sleep. The irritating thing was that when I told her that Joshua has a feeding tube, her whole demeanor changed. She did a double take, then asked "why" in a very alarmed voice. It was like we had entered the world of Grey's Anatomy, where the presence of a feeding tube signals a dire medical emergency. In reality, Joshua is a very healthy little guy who is not in a dire medical situation *at all*, and I could tell she thought so too because I was getting the overprotective-mother-who-jumped-the-gun-taking-her-son-to-the-doctor vibe until I mentioned the feeding tube, and then suddenly I was getting the why-isn't-this-kid-in-the-hospital vibe. I understand that the presence of a feeding tube might signal the need for some further conversation about why it's there and how it might relate to his current sickness; I just wish that the initial disclosure of it would've been treated with calm rather than alarm.
Second part of rant: general knowledge. When the doctor asked why Joshua has a feeding tube, I told her it's because he has Pierre Robin Sequence. She says she's never heard of it and asks me to explain what it is. [Note: this happens all.the.time. It wasn't just this doctor.] It's so irritating to go in to the doctor and then it ends up that you are the one doing all the medical explaining. I know this is an unfair thing to be irritated about. When I was practicing law, people would ask all kinds of random stuff all the time (for example, "What are the drug laws in the city of Denver?"), and I rarely knew the answer unless it was specifically in my area of practice. Law school trains you how to issue spot, research, and apply laws, not how to memorize every conceivable law in existence. I assume that med school works the same way, so I'm not saying that this doctor was doing anything wrong. BUT, in my dream universe, it would be nice if the urgent care doctor knew more than I did about what was going on with my son's medical condition, or at least had heard of it.
Rant over. I hope you have a great weekend!
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