For all his university education, an ophthalmologist is about to be
inducted into the ranks of the Idiot Alert Files. Specifically, my
ophthalmologist, or more to the point, my former ophthalmologist. I
have been his patient for years but my appointment just after
Thanksgiving cooked that goose, and you won't find me in his office
ever again.
He had told me before, several years ago, about finding a "haze" on my
left cornea. Good, precise scientific terminology, that. When I tried
to question him about it, he brushed my queries aside with, "It's
nothing to worry about." At this latest appointment, he said again that
it was there but that it had not changed. When I asked if it were
something progressive, he answered in the negative. The only thing is
that I could see my file sitting close by and on it were the
words "lattice dystrophy". I looked that up when I got home and found
it meant "Fine refractile lines in a lattice meshwork appear in the
anterior corneal stroma centrally and spread to the periphery."
What the hell, doc? Are you just assuming I'm not capable of
understanding that? Are you arrogantly thinking that you have the right
to withhold information from me about my own eyes? Are you doing that
fucking stupid thing where you people who think MD stands for "medical
deity" pat the compliant little patient on the head and send them away
none the wiser?
I also noticed, really noticed for the first time how the routine and
the machines used in an appointment in his office haven't changed one
iota in years, seeming to indicate a man perhaps allowing himself and
his practice to fall behind the times. The arms on the patent's chair
in the examining room are cracking and showing the stuffing. Not a good
sign, especially in the office of a specialist 'cause we all know he
makes quite sufficient to spend a little more on his office; unless
he's letting the place run down while he coasts toward retirement. If
that is indeed the case, then every one of his patients should desert
that sinking ship before it takes them and their vision down with it.
We each get one pair of eyes, one pair only, and to have someone like
him messing around with them, with his nonchalant, who-gives-a-shit
attitude should scare anyone whose eye care he is following.
I had to wait almost five months to see this idiot, but I was hoping
for him to give me a new prescription to help with vision changes. When
I tried to question him about the change I had noticed, and I am after
all the one who looks out through this particular set of eyes each and
every day, he just kept repeating like a worn-out mantra that my
numbers had not changed. He offered no informative response to any of
my questions. No, wait a minute, he did remind me once that I already
knew my left eye was "wonky". I suppose there might be some who would
wonder how much more info I could need than "wonky". I just expect
someone who was for a time the head of ophthalmology at a local
hospital to use terms a little more , oh, perhaps a little more
scientific than that idiocy. I know ... how unreasonable and demanding!
On the advice of my GP, I went today to see an optometrist who works at
a clinic where the differences from the idiot's office and practice
were eye-opening, indeed.
First of all, every machine against which I was asked to press my face
was first wiped with a disinfectant wipe. That's not done in the
idiot's office. With a machine entirely new to me, pictures (baseline)
were taken of my retinas. That's not done in the idiot's office. Every
question I asked was answered with a full explanation, using proper
terms. That's not done in the idiot's office. An explanation of varying
options in lenses and how they might better suit my needs was
undertaken. That's not done in the idiot's office.
At no point did I ask for a new prescription but I was sent away with
one, after being told that the new numbers, although not a drastic
change, would help me to feel "a little more like I was seeing life"
with greater ease and clarity. Sometimes a little can be a lot.
I am sure Mr. I-Know-More-Than-You would look down his ophthalmic nose
at the optometrist I saw today, but I came away feeling myself to have
been treated with more respect, feeling more sure of having received
quality care than I have for some time.

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Posted By aka.alias to aka.alias at 11/03/2009 04:33:00 PM