Talk about judgemental. First off, he was very condescending. Proceeds to tell me I'm not a candidate for surgery because of my smoking. I reply, "I haven't smoked in 4 years!" Well, it says here you do. WELL, IF YOU HAD LOOKED AT CURRENT INTAKE INSTEAD OF AN OLD HOSPITAL CHART THAT WAS 11 YEARS OLD, YOU WOULD KNOW A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME! Perhaps he would have known that it took 35 years to finally get a diagnosis for my connective tissue disease and severe chronic pain. Perhaps he would have known what diagnoses I carry. He did not ask one question about past medical history. If he had, he would have known that I suffer from SEVERE autoimmune connective tissue disease and I was seeing him because of pain caused by tendons and ligaments with diseased attachments at the bones. If they are fraying and beginning to show signs of disease now, they will only continue to get worse. I know. I have lived this my entire adult life. He didn't even to look to see what autoimmune diagnoses I carry. He had come to his own conclusions about me before he ever stepped foot in that room. His bedside manner is that of a prick. I knew that my joint was not bone on bone, I told him that. I also know my body and what is happening but he wouldn't even take a moment to listen and find out. Not everything is cut and dried! Not every patient is the same and not every patient presents the same. I have had 30+ surgeries due to my disease processes, to repair my joints over the past 35 years, and I have been disabled for the past 20. If a doctor cannot listen to a patient, be empathetic, and be open to considering that something other than loss of cartilage can cause extreme joint pain, and then consider a patient's entire past medical history and realize there could possibly be something else going on to make a patient unable to perform activities of daily living, they absolutely have no business working in the medical field. I worked in the medical field for 25 years, side by side with surgeons, and transcribing for every surgical field, and I have never worked with any who were so closed minded and had a worse bedside manner!
save yourself the trip. find someone else to begin with. read more