Worst Doctor Stories

[KrisinNM]

Unfortunately I'm sure we all have them. Let's share and maybe have a laugh or two. ;)
#1 worst: Internal med guy in PHX area when I had been TI for about 2 years. He told me to quit being a slave to my bg meter and take the same amount of R for every meal. My next A1C was 12!!!! He was also more interested in talking about the studies he was doing on Native Americans than what was happening with me.
#2 One doc suggested that I might try one of the oral meds along with my insulin injections :eek: Excuse me??? If I am TI and no longer producing insulin what good would that do?
#3 I was referred to another internal med guy in the PHX area that couldn't speak English- he was from India.
#4 The "doc in a box" that I saw only once to get approval for my pump (no one else in the wilds of southwestern CO would do it) who disappeared in the middle of the night about the time my pump arrived. Thank god for "Pumping Insulin" because I never had any training and taught myself.
OK, your turn :)

[archimeech]

1. Navy Doctor I was seeing when diagnosed(he didn't diagnose it was a doctor doing residency a couple of days later). He kept telling me and my mom that I had the flew and then just wanted to spend the rest of the time talking about Greek food to the 2 of us(mom's greek, from Athens) I wound up losing 23 pounds in 3 days due to not being diagnosed.
2. Then there was the attending on the pediatric ward that decided to do some medical paper research on me without getting mine of my parents consent. he wanted to see how low he could get my amount of carbs and still keep me going. I wound up one day with a sugar of 17!!!
3. Endo that put me on my pump:
Second visit after going on pump, waited 2 hours for the doctor in an empty office(no other patients) I complained and slammed the door on the way out. Called later to complain to the office manager and was told she wasn't there. That was on a tuesday. That very Friday, I receive a certified letter stating that the Doctor will no longer be my physician and I need to find someone else. I reported him to both my insurance company and the state licensure board. Only 3 Endos in this town so nothing came of it. They're needed too much, and REALLY have a god complex because of it, more so than a normal doctor.

[bac4uw]

Hey Kris,
I really have had only one somewhat bad experience with a doctor (in Phoenix, no less) and it really wasn't even his fault. - I suppose he was more of the messenger that I was trying to shoot at the time.

I had been diagnosed T1 a year or so earlier and was interested in getting on the pump. So my insurance company naturally wanted a letter from him describing what it was that I wanted and why I wanted it. At the time, I was on a great insurance plan offered by a major employer... and they denied me the pump not once, but twice! Explanation? I was doing fine on injections, and the $5G's they'd have to cough up would not be worth it in the long run for them. The truth of the matter is that I was doing fine on injections, but wanted the pump for convenience. Not sure what exactly came across in the letter to the insurance company... but my doc said that not only has this never happened to him, but he had never even heard of it happening for that reason!

Needless to say, I switched insurance companies (and eventually doctors)... but never did request the pump again.

[duck]

My current endo (though I really, REALLY try not to see him, keep reading) told me within minutes of meeting me he thought that pumps were worthless and if mine broke he would NOT write a letter of medical necessity for another...People do fine on MDI. I had *just* met the guy, so I was biting my tongue. I said "It's chnaged my life..." and he says something to the effect of my life would be better on Lantus, and he goes on this speel about how one shot of lantus a day and then MDI to cover meals is so convenient. I asked "Have you ever had to give yourself a shot for the necessity of eating?" and he glossed over it by saying "People do it all the time." Oh, okay. So he goes on again about my basal levels and how they fluctuate but never more then .3 an hour, and how he laughs when he sees that because it's no different than what lantus does when the proper amount is admnistered.

So duck was fed up with this $8!7 at this point and asks aloud "Does your pharmaceutical rep give you great perks for pushing lantus?"

Oh he got mad. "If you don't want to switch you can just say so."

"I thought that was obvious? Okay, I'm NOT going to switch."

Unfortunately, like Archimeech, there is really only a few endos in Northern VA/Metro DC, so I've dealt with this guy for two years now.

[KLD]

#2 One doc suggested that I might try one of the oral meds along with my insulin injections Excuse me??? If I am TI and no longer producing insulin what good would that do?
Horror stories indeed, and, unfortunately, not rare these days. But this one item, depending on the circumstances, might be reasonable. If the patient is insulin dependent and has also developed insulin resistance, then metformin is sometimes prescribed as it helps increase sensitivity to insulin, whether it's natural or injected.

Karen

[notme]

Where do I start.

How about this guy. I went to my GP with shortness of breath, frequent urination, 30 lb. weight loss in a month (I weighted 120) and blurred vision. I was sick, very very sick. The doctor did a finger stick at his office. My blood sugar was HI on his meter. He gave me oral meds and told me to start them in the morning. He said I would feel better in a couple of days and I needed to make an appointment with a dietician. Two days later I was in the intesive care unit at our local hospital. Type one diabetes with a blood sugar of over 1200.

[sparkle9]

An endo I went to a couple of years ago had me on so much Novolin R and N that I was constantly having to eat to overcome severe lows and then having rebound highs. When my A1c's would be around 7, he would say, "A few lows now and then are no big deal." Of course, he didn't feel as lousy as I felt all the time! He didn't want me to try lantus. After a few months of putting up with his refusal to listen to what I had to say or answer my questions, it dawned on me that he was probably getting some perks from the company that makes the products he was prescribing.

I found another doctor, an internist, who presribed lantus and humalog and I'm doing so much better. Unfortunately he moved. Now I have an appt. with another endo Monday. I hope he's nicer than the last one. If he's not, he's history! I've reached a point in my life where I'm not willing to put up with doctors who are rude or who don't have time to listen or answer questions. After all, they are our employees, so we have a right to fire them if they aren't doing the job.

[gettingby]

Well said on the last part sparkle9. My horror story: Was diagnosed by family GP with type 1. Put on oral meds(yes, i said oral meds). Went on like this for one year. Admitted to hospital in DKA. Docs at hospital were giving me IV glucose but no insulin(my sister had to tell them again that I was in there for diabetes and DKA !!!!!!). This was on day of admittance. Finally turned over to Peditrician who started things out right (after about a 3 hr. slow glucose drip !!!!!). IDIOTS . The story continues........ good CDE now. Endo appt. in January.

[Belinda]

Nope....I interviewed doctors before I hired them...best thing Ihave ever done :thumbsup:

Did have to go to a appointed physician for a job and he was asking questions that were irrelevant to the physical. Since I had seen the physical form and had been with my doctor for years! When he would ask those questions I would simply reply...just stick to the questions on the form..your not my doctor nor will you ever be :whistling I can be a bit rude with those that come in with an attitude like he had (Oh great another work physical!!) :smartass:

[sparkle9]

Wow! I never thought of interviewing doctors before hiring them. What is the fee for that, Belinda?

Another thing that annoys me...filling out those lengthy forms when you are a new patient. Then when you finally get in to talk to the nurse or the doctor they start asking you the same questions that you answered on the form!

[KrisinNM]

Karen
But this one item, depending on the circumstances, might be reasonable. If the patient is insulin dependent and has also developed insulin resistance, then metformin is sometimes prescribed as it helps increase sensitivity to insulin, whether it's natural or injected.

I am so sensitive to insulin that my pump is set for 1/2 unit an hour

Wonder how many people have been killed by doctors who know nothing about TI? :(

[Clint]

I really only have one horror story...

In the spring on '99 I got a yeast infection.. went to GP and he gave me meds... a month later it came back... went back to GP and I explained all the problems I was having and he told my wife and I that one of us was cheating on the other... left there with another round of meds but very upset...

one week later another dr at the same office dx me with type 1 diabetes...

[Belinda]

Wow! I never thought of interviewing doctors before hiring them. What is the fee for that, Belinda?

Another thing that annoys me...filling out those lengthy forms when you are a new patient. Then when you finally get in to talk to the nurse or the doctor they start asking you the same questions that you answered on the form!


I just paid my copay which was 15.00 but is and was well worth it. Luckily I didn't have to interview many and I don't allow for any lab work. I go in with a list of questions and a notepad to write down any information. The doctor that I "hired" was/is wonderful. He took in consideration all of those things two years later when he referred me to an endo and he did a great job in the match up. I also like the fact that both these doctors return you calls themselves. I also have had both of them call just to check up on me when I was sick with flu or had an eye surgery :thumbsup: I acutally look forward to going to the doctor and enjoy the visit (yep I know this is crazy but ....mine are great!)

[Littlebit63_99]

Kris,

GREAT POST !!!!!!!

I went to see a phycologist last year when I started having that last complication that I just couldn't take anymore

He told me that "The power of the mind has not been fully discovered enough. And, if I beleived enough in my own brain, I would no longer be a diabetic"

Needless to say I got up an walked out. That was the worst.

Another (not fun) experience, but not so horrible was............. a trip to the eye doctor. My normal doctor was out so I had to see a new doc.

I think he had to be a very young diabetic......cuz he was yelling at me about my blood sugars.......now, I'll admit that what he was saying was correct......."if you can keep your AIC's below 7, you will develope less complications." But, he was trying to tell me what levels to put my pump at.........I ended up asking him to please look at my eyes, and quit trying to be my endo, cuz he's an eye doctor, not my endo. Who btw I see every three months without fail, and sometimes more.
I called the office manager also.......and got an apology.

Just a note about my endo......(I'm sooooooo proud of this) The University of Minnesota's doctors all told my that my endo is a genious and the best doc I could be seeing.

I don't think that eye doctor knows what the word brittle means!!!!

Those are my two stories, again, great post Kris!!!

[Eri's mom]

The worst when in the ER w/ Eri. She was in DKA, etc. NO endo's will see her in our area, so we have to go to Tampa(about 45 minutes to an hour away)...I SWEAR, why do they call themselves "pediatric" endocrinologists if they won't even start seeing them until 14???
We saw the ER doc for a minute, he said, yep, DKA, threw her on phenegren and meds to bring down her sugar and then moved her into the hallway...we NEVER saw him again...(the place was packed, they had us in the lockdown ward w/ cops all over and inmates...and had an older lady w/ dementia come in and take Eri's room...she got violent, came out, and thank GOD Eri was sound asleep...screamed in her face (well, tried to sing) "Little girl, little girl, they're gonna kill you little girl!!!"....I was like, ummmm, is her ped here yet and can we PLEASE get up to the 5th floor??? They actually had cops around us b/c she was the youngest one there and in the middle of all chaos.

Another bad experience, at that hospital's ER(I could go on forever about that ER, but that's the county hospital)...was when my husband was burned...skin melted right off his foot. They brought him in, put wet gauze over his wounds from his arm down to his foot and left. A PA saw him, they came in less than 2 hours later and said, you're being discharged(he was on morphine, dilauded and phenegren) and I said, but I want him to see an MD...so, an MD finally came into the room, said, Hi Veal Stock boy, you'll be back to work in 4 days(he never once looked at his wounds, which I had to keep redressing since nobody was coming in to check)...that was 8 days after we spent FIVE hours there for Eri's broken arm...her sugar was SKY high then, didn't do a thing for her, and then she DROPPED...nada from them)....oh, and btw, that was 9/9 of this year(for my dh) and he STILL cannot return to work...good call doc.(he melted 2 veins and a nerve)

[KrisinNM]

Oh wow :eek: :eek:
I'll bet you are glad you are moving!

[Eri's mom]

LOL...Heck yeah...don't get me wrong, the hospital itself is good...it's the ER that I have had a bad experience in 99.9% of the time...even when Eri was brught in after a major seizure...what did they do(she was brought by ambulance)...gave her a sandwich and sent her home...we supplied the gatorade....they sent her home in less than 2 hours.
It was the same hospital ER that REFUSED to take me in at 24 yrs old when I had the chicken pox. My mom finally called and said, "If you don't take my daughter in now, you'll have 8 on your side called, I'll call my atty's, etc...her temp is 105.7 and you can't even recognize her face and she can barely breath...you've sent her home 4 times...take her NOW!"....they took me(that was actually the same day they found out Susan Smith was the one who killed her children).(Oh, my insides were infested w/ pox, I was unrecognizable, was in a coma for a few days, had the CDC there with me...one of the worst cases they saw...actually came home weighing 80lbs)...
I'll shut up...I could STILL go on about that place!

[Dewey]

I really only have one horror story, but the second one made me so mad (and could have created some severe complications had I not switched docs)!

1. Went to a phlebotomist/Dr. (in New York - can still remember his name, lol :- ) for the blood draw. He was the Worst phlebotomist EVER! :eek: I'll never forget going on that field trip just a few days later with one of the biggest (and worst) bruises on my little arm! :mad: Uggg!

2. I was seeing this endo (quack) for about a year and a half prior to starting pump therapy. Came to find out he & his cohort (nurse - who was actually a "friend" of my sister's <Some "Friend"> :rolleyes: ) were in cahoots with the local hospital, and wanted me to spend a week there (at age 23 or so) to the tune of $10,000! :mad: Needless to say, my hubby's insurance (which was actually quite good) denied the claim (understandably so!). Meanwhile, the doc and his bud are telling me I'm Not being enthusiastic enough about pump therapy, and all the while my A1C's were climbing higher. Talk about losing those losers...lol! :D The story ended happily though (thankfully). I went to another local doc (who was being bad-mouthed by the quack and his nurse), and immediately hit it off with him. It took about 3 months (and my new insurance less than a week to review the claim), and I was on pump therapy right before my 24th birthday (in 1996)! :thumbsup:

[Eri's mom]

Oh phlebotomists...lol.
I had to have my blood drawn for my pregnancy test w/ my son...I have HORRIBLE veins to begin with, but this girl was the worst!!! She jabbed both arms so many times...collapsed my veins...my whole left arm was a bruise from elbow to wrist, and the track marks look on my right arm was horrid...I actually ended up passing out...she was a trip.

Now they just always use the pediatric butterfly on me...and I usually have the head phelbotomist drawing my blood or starting my IV...lol.

[Clint]

2 weeks ago I ended up in the ER due to Irritable Bowel Syndrome... and I needed an IV... I have always been active so my viens are very noticable... the nurse that came in could not hit my vien... When she came in I showed her my arms and said, I have plenty of viens... just pick one... and she missed... I still have that bruise...

[zookeeper671]

I think the most awful doc I've had was the doc that confirmed the T1 diagnosis and attempted to treat me, alone, without the help of a CDE, nutritionist or endo. He wouldn't give me a referral to an endo, told me he could handle the diabetes management and that diabetes classes weren't essential. He just about killed me. Had he told me how important a good endo was to proper care, I would have made the switch (even without insurance at the time). I think that's why he wouldn't refer me.

This debacle of a doc had me on so much insulin (60+ units of 70/30 mix) that my average bsl was about 50mg/dl, with frequent lows into the 20's and 30's. It got to the point where I was feeling "normal" walking around with bsl's in the 30's. I honestly don't know how many times my bf had to inject glucagon into me because he'd find me unresponsive. He actually got into the habit of checking my pulse in the middle of the night to see if I was still alive. (Later found out I was also in the honeymoon stage, so my dosage requirements weren't very high.) I spent 2 months like this. My A1c after those 2 months was 3.2, down from 16.2. I was having severe hypos almost every day, sometimes several times a day. That's just insane.

After figuring out how to adjust my own dosages (mainly from this forum [thank God] and from the book "Diabetes for Dummies"), I managed to somewhat get a handle on things. Fourteen months later and I'm still making adjustments.

Thankfully, I'm in good hands now. :)

[archimeech]

That's great Zoo, that you were able to come out of it well. I'll tell you, though, lol...
20 years later and I'm STILL making all those adjustments, every day! Keep it up, honey.

[Mario]

Where do I start.

How about this guy. I went to my GP with shortness of breath, frequent urination, 30 lb. weight loss in a month (I weighted 120) and blurred vision. I was sick, very very sick. The doctor did a finger stick at his office. My blood sugar was HI on his meter. He gave me oral meds and told me to start them in the morning. He said I would feel better in a couple of days and I needed to make an appointment with a dietician. Two days later I was in the intesive care unit at our local hospital. Type one diabetes with a blood sugar of over 1200.

My story is like yours Nancy. I was sick about 3 weeks and lose 35 pounds. I drinked a lot, many urination, blurred vision, no energy. I saw two differents doctors. They both thought that it was a kidney problem so they gave me some tests to do at the hospital 3 weeks later !!! The result : I went to emergency 5 days later with a 40 mmol/l (which is about 720mg/l I think) blood glucose level. My ketones were very high et I was in acidoketosis. Very bad experience ! And the day I went to emergency for that was december 25th !!! Merry Christmas :D

[PeptideBong]

When I was first daignosed the student doctor told me I wasn't the sickest person in the hospital and was obviously trying to get me out as soon as possible and thinking of the easiest plan to get me out of there. I agree I wasn't the sickest person at the time but my BG were still in the 15 mmol range and I had only given myself a couple of needles and wasn't too confortable with it yet. I had told him that my brother was diabetic and that I live with him and his plan for me was to have my brother monitor my diabetes for me. My brother is great at managing his diabetes but he might have a problem doing that for someone who is newly diagnosed. After a few days I had come to the realization that I wasn't going to get under control until I was out of the hospital and doing things myself. Which is what happened.