Dumb Doctors

Just get acupuncture, it works!

This morning I had a surrealistic visit at a doctor's office that begs retelling. I shall not name the doctor or the orthopedic office located at 33 Sewall Street in Portland, Maine because I want to say bad things about them and avoid getting sued.

My appointment time was 10:30 but I was instructed to come 15 minutes early to fill out the necessary paperwork as I was a new patient. So I arrived even earlier than that just to be sure I wasn't late since I had waited for this appointment with His Holiness the Orthopedic Surgeon for almost a month.

The subject to be discussed was my left knee, which has been seriously ill since last October. I have taken it to several doctors, a physical therapist and an acupuncturist. It has been x-rayed and MRI'd. The sports medicine specialist I saw twice said I needed to see a surgeon in case of my needing a knee replacement, which I knew in my heart wouldn't happen until A, Hell freezes over or B, Kamala Harris does something right. But I still wanted a surgeon, who after all went to medical school for this stuff and actually graduated, to explain my MRI results and what I could expect going forward.

I arrived before 10 AM and signed in. The "paperwork" took about five minutes. Then I sat in the waiting room, which seemed to be filling up at an alarming rate. About 20 minutes after my appointment time, I approached the front desk and asked the teenager sitting there, "What's up?" He said that I was definitely next, after one more person ahead of me. I asked, "So my appointment time of 10:30 means nothing?" The boy nodded in agreement.

At 11 AM, a girl dressed in jeans and a t-shirt entered the now overflowing waiting room -- apparently every doctor in the practice was running late -- and shouted my name. Walking me into the inner sanctum, she acknowledged my annoyed grumbling by saying, "Why are you so upset, your appointment was for 10:45." No, it was for 10:30 but I said nothing, saving my strength for what was to come. 

Once inside the little room, T-shirt girl asked me the same questions I had answered on the "paperwork" I had filled out when I arrived. I told her to look at that paper, which she was holding in her hand. She then left the room, telling me the Doctor would be "right in," and another 20 minutes passed. I played Words With Friends on my cellphone and called my husband to rant and rave. He begged me not to do anything I would regret later.

Finally the Doctor arrived, almost an hour after my appointment time. A tiny man, he looked like one of the Munchkins. From behind his face mask he said, "Now let's take a look at that knee of yours." (I guess that's how they talk in Munchkinland.) I said enough people had looked at my knee in the last six months to start a basketball team and besides it was better now, but I still wanted an interpretation of my MRI results and my options for the future should it get bad again. He said, "The radiologist is who looks at the MRI." Obviously he had never seen it, although I had been assured that it had arrived at his office weeks before. 

Dr. Munchkin, noticeably rattled, ad-libbed, saying that I definitely have arthritis of the knee which at my age is not surprising, and I should try taking Advil and ibuprofen. I debated telling him that Advil is ibuprofen but figured, hey, let him find that out for himself. After all, I'm not the one getting paid.

I did not check out at the front desk as instructed and left out a side door. Who knows, maybe nobody is getting paid.