It's tough being on the receiving end of care. I've tried to avoid it as much as possible, being ever mindful of the law from Samuel Shem's The House of G-d: "They can always hurt you more."
I recently had several medical encounters at three different facilities, highlighting systemic problems in medical care. Fortunately, each procedure went more smoothly than the prior one.
The first was not so elective. I had some uncomfortable symptoms while exercising and, not wanting to totally be in denial, contacted my doctor to ensure that it was not cardiac in origin since symptoms are often atypical in women.
My physician promptly saw me, then scheduled a nuclear stress test. There was a series of needless glitches. Registration at the diagnostic center had me on their schedule but did not have an order. They would have canceled the procedure had I not been able to get hold of the doctor's office. Why isn't an order automatically entered when the physician schedules the test?
While I was given the euphemistic "Patient Rights" brochure, asking to have reports sent to a physician outside of the UPMC empire is apparently not included.
The staff canceled the stress test because I was not fasting.
