Doctor Snob

I realized yesterday that I am quite a doctor snob.

It's probably due to the fact that my father is a doctor... I have a picture in my mind what a doctor should be and how he should behave, and what he should look like or wear, etc.

An experience I had back at USU with their Wellness Center probably doesn't help the matter.

It was the first semester I was married and around March time frame I came down with a terrible sore throat that wouldn't go away. My dad prescribed me an antibiotic to try, but after a week still no success.

So, I decided I would go in and get my throat cultured at the Wellness Center to see what the problem was.

The doctor that I saw there didn't even look me in the eye when he was talking to me. Not once. He just kept his eyes on the clipboard. Then after the throat culture he prescribed me the exact same antibiotic I had been on the week previous. And I had even told him this when he was asking me questions...

Needless to say, that was the only time that I ever went to the Wellness Center. Snob, right?

Well, eventually one of my friend's father (who is an ear nose and throat doctor) decided he was going to stop by our house when he was out on a bike ride. After telling him my symptoms and what not, we discovered that it was the birth control I was on. It was relaxing the muscles in my throat causing me to have acid reflux. And when I went off that stuff my throat was better! As was my mood.

Birth control and I didn't really agree...

But anyway... I'm a doctor snob.

I decided I needed to take Andy in to see the doctor yesterday because although his rash is getting better he has developed a cough, and a fever and a runny nose and watery swollen eyes.

After calling the base hospital, I was informed there weren't any open appointments that day so they transferred me to the Tricare Nurse Advice Line. After talking with the nurse she told me that I needed to get an appointment for Andy and she wanted him seen within 24 hours.

So, since there weren't any appointments available on base I was referred off-base to this clinic.

I hate to admit that as soon as I arrived at the location I was skeptical. It was the doctor snob coming out in me.

The clinic was located in a strip mall with a Mexican restaurant on one side and "Flowers by June" across the way.

I wasn't further impressed when I waited for almost 30 minutes after my appointment time to be shown back, and it didn't appear to be busy.

(It also probably didn't help that when I signed in the clipboard was set up for righties. It was sitting on this little ledge next to the check in window turned 180 degrees to the left so that someone who was right-handed could easily fill it out, but for a lefty you had to turn your arm all funky.)

The nurse was really nice, but the procedures for getting Andy's weight and height were different than the strict professional way of the Pediatric Clinic at the base hospital.

At the hospital you have to strip your baby down to his diaper in the waiting room and then you take off the diaper when they get weighed.

The nurse at the off-base clinic had Andy stand on a scale fully clothed with his shoes on.

Not a big deal, but different.

The big thing for me was when they got his height.

At the hospital they have a place where you lay the child and then someone hold the head up against a board and then another straightens the child's legs to get an exact measurement of height.

At the clinic off-base, the nurse had Andy lay down on one of those short hospital beds (that wasn't even completely flat) and then took a pen and made a mark on the paper above his head and below his feet. He wasn't even laying straight. And then she took the tape measure and measured between the two marks she made, pulling it tight so it wasn't accounting for the bend in the table.

I was skeptical.

But the doctor came in, and he was really nice and actually looked me in the eyes while talking to me. He diagnosed Andy with a sinus infection and prescribed some medicine. I really hope it works. Poor guy was miserable yesterday.

The clinic said they would fax the prescription in to the pharmacy on base and then I would be able to pick it up later.

I ended up having to call the clinic and have them re-fax the prescription... could have been either party's fault, but of course I blamed the off-base clinic.

Having an on-call doctor for Andy's ailments certainly doesn't help my snobbiness. I'll text Andy's symptoms to my father and he'll respond back with what he thinks is wrong and what I can or need to do.

And now that I have typed a novel about how I'm a doctor snob, I hope none of you think less of me. I'll try to work on it. :)