>Bad Doctor: Stories That Will Make You Laugh- and Cry

>As promised, here’s the link to my Bad Doctor column in this week’s Nashville Scene. It’s definitely worth a read- You will be in awe of what some Suburban Turmoil readers have endured at the hands of their physicians.

The thing is, it’s an 800-something word column, so I wasn’t able to include all the great stories you guys sent me. So here are a few more that I would have loved to have used in the column, but had to leave out for space.

Alicia went to the emergency room where she promptly passed out and woke up vomiting. Here’s what happened next…

With nothing showing up on any tests, the primary doctor that was treating me told me he thought I just needed to poop. He told me he was sending me home, and I flipped right out. I told him I was not going home and that he needed to figure out what the hell was wrong with me because it most definitely was NOT that I needed to poop...
…About 10 minutes later, I literally was in the middle of a scene from “E.R.” I had about 12 people working on me all at the same time, yelling things to each other, yelling things to me, and prepping me for surgery. The room started to go dark again… I remember laying outside the operating room on a stretcher waiting for the surgeon they paged to show up. He called back and wanted to know if my surgery could wait until the morning, since he was eating dinner… By the time he got into my abdomen (about nine hours after I’d fainted/had a seizure in the ER waiting area), I had lost over A LITER of blood and had to have three blood transfusions. I had a corpus luteum cyst (only the size of a lima bean!) that had ruptured. I basically was having massive internal bleeding with no traumatic injury. With the amount of blood I had lost, I was told I could have gone into cardiac arrest at any moment. If surgery had been delayed even 30 minutes to an hour later, I would have been dead. So, yeah, I didn’t need to poop.”

This from Amberjean…

“When I had a bad car accident and showed no outward signs of injury he didn’t even want to listen to me. My only problem was severe abdominal pain and I couldn’t stand without passing out. He kept me in the Er for 8 hours continually telling me I should go home that there was nothing wrong with me. I was almost 19, very scared and in severe pain. After I begged and pleaded (and my mom pleaded) he finally put me in an observation room at 3am. At 6am they brought in another Dr who ran some tests and had me in emergency surgery very quickly. I had laid in the hospital from 7pm until 6am bleeding internally because my bowels had been torn badly. They were so bad the Dr told my mom he may have to do a Colostomy. I had lost a lot of blood and lost 16 inches of intestines. 13 of the Large and 3 of the Small. Thankfully no Colostomy and Thankfully I didn’t listen to that Dr.“

From “Irrelevant,” who was referred to a specialist after repeated bouts of dizziness:

“When the specialist finally got around to see me, he asked me what the problem was…I began explaining it in as much detail as I thought would prove useful to his diagnostic investigation. Before I was three sentences in, he sternly interrupted me with “your story is useless. I’m the doctor here, not you”, and he then brusquely informed me that he had two tests to perform and they would go smoother if “I would keep my chatter to a minimum”. I wasn’t sure if I was more stunned or annoyed. Anyway, I took his two tests. Then he finished with me by telling me the tests were negative, and “what we have here is a problem that’s in your head, and a waste of my valuable time”. Now I was just angry; I told him to f*** off, and I’d go find a real doctor… …A friend of mine recommended I go see his chiropractor; a neck adjustment to relieve a pinched nerve in my neck, and the dizziness problem was gone. And has never returned the past 25 years.”

Kristen had a gynecologist from hell…

“My first OBGYN was a woman who very pushy and blunt. This being my first OB appointment and major step toward being a woman I was terrified. I also was ummmm how do I put this delicately a VIRGIN. When I explained this to the doctor she first told me I was lying to her and then went on to run STD tests on me. She called me back two weeks later to tell me I had a certain STD and because of that I would never probably have children – I was very upset and went in to see her the next day in tears. After another round of tests and more badgering from Dr. Psycho (who again made it clear that she did not believe that I had never had sex) she figured out that I did not indeed have any STD’s. I did not go back to her again.”

Lindsey referred to her OB as “Mr. Wonderful…” simply because he was so NOT!

“…When delivery time came he was late. I had to wait 30 min with Baby in the birth canal screaming to get out before he finally showed up and did his job. She had a terrible cut and major bruising on her head from all of the pressure which caused a moderate case of jaundice, but she was ok so I stuck with him.

During one yearly exam, I was riding high in the stirrups with him at Ground Zero when his cell phone rang. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if it hadn’t been his wife calling and his ring tone for her wouldn’t have been “Sexual Healing” !!!!!!!!!

Things continued to go down hill with baby number 2. After suffering with some of the same pregnancy difficulties that I’d had with Baby 1, including blood pressure issues, Baby 2 was ready. Apparently, Mr Wonderful was not. He missed the delivery! I had been in the hospital, in labor for over 24 hours and he didn’t show. The nurse, bless her heart, caught Baby 2 just as her butt hit the bed, unwrapped the cord from her neck, calle’d the ICU to have her checked, cleaned her up, weighed and measured her before he decided to make a grand appearance about 20 minutes after the delivery. Upon which, he berrated the nurse for not waiting for him saying that she should have just been patient.

The final straw came after I began having some medical issues, post-partum, and he told me that I was just screwed up and nothing he or anyone else did would make it better so I just needed to get used to not being normal. Yep, Mr Wonderful!“

Katie’s bad doctor was a dentist…

While I was under this dentist’s care, she and her hygienist told me that I had early gingivitis and that I needed a full mouth debridement (an $800 out of pocket gum cleaning procedure) despite a lifetime of good oral hygiene and positive 6 month check-ups with other dentists. They said that most likely I had this problem as a result of pregnancy (I had just had a baby when I went in for my checkup) . When I went back a month later for my follow up visit, they told me that my gums were in excellent health; however, at my checkup in March, they said that my gums had deteriorated to the state of full blown periodontal disease and that I needed scaling, root planing, and $1000+ worth of Arestin (an antibiotic that goes into your gums to kill bacteria; this is not covered by my insurance). They told me that I would need to stop breastfeeding in order to have the Arestin treatments. They also told me that if I were to get pregnant again, my baby would be in danger of being low birth weight due to the condition of my gums and that it would not be safe for me to get pregnant without (paying them at least $1000 and) having the scaling, root planing, and Arestin treatments done. Based on my experiences with this practice last summer (where they missed my 2 needed root canals, resulting in excruciating and unnecessary pain), I did not exactly trust their judgment, so I went to another dentist for a second opinion. The other dentist and his hygienist were appalled that I had been told that I have periodontal disease and that I needed scaling, root planing, and Arestin. They said that my gums were very healthy and they did not understand how another dentist could come to that conclusion. Also since then, the local paper has done a “troubleshooter” column about this dentist and I have found out that dozens of other people have had the same experiences as me, where the dentist tried to get thousands of dollars from her patients with fake periodontal disease diagnoses. Follow your instincts – if you think your health provider is wrong, get a second opinion!

This reader recently had a miscarriage. After a series of mishaps at her doctor’s office, this was the final straw…

“…they put me back in another exam room where I waited for almost half an hour and was about to get up and leave again, when the doctor comes in (this is doctor #4) and says, “So, you’re having a miscarriage!” He must have known from the look on my face that he was being insensitive, so he said, “Sorry to be so blunt, it’s just getting late and we all want to go home.” EXC– USE ME??? They were the ones that called ME in for the emergency appointment! I didn’t even want to BE THERE!!! At one point during the examination he said, “If you girls didn’t bleed, I wouldn’t have a job!” Very sensitive.”

These are just a few more- I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to post your story. If I posted everyone’s, you’d never get through this post! Thank you so much for sharing, everyone.

Now go and get yourself a good doctor! Oh and as always, if you care to comment at the Scene, I’d love to stop by your blog this week for a visit. Be sure and leave your URL in the comment so that I can find you.