When Your Biggest Headache Is The Doctor
Hospital, Ohio, USA | Healthy | December 4, 2017
(I have chronic, crippling migraines. Sometimes I have to go the ER for a shot. On one such visit, the doctor came in, saw me in my floppy hat and sunglasses, and says
Doctor: “Don’t you think that’s a little ridiculous?”
(The migraine has my brain muddled. All I can say is
Me: “What?”
(He went into a rather long rant about the dark room, my hat, and my sunglasses. Then he left the room.)
Me: *to my husband* “What just happened?”
Husband: “I don’t know. He’s doing something at the desk now.”
(The doctor returned after about twenty minutes.)
Doctor: “I just checked your record. You’ve been here seventeen times in the last month.”
Me: “No. I haven’t been here for two months at least.”
Doctor: “Don’t lie. I saw the record. It’s obvious you just want the drugs.”
(He continued berating me for being a drug-seeker until I was crying hard. Then, he told me to get out. I had a physical therapy appointment two days later. After what the ER doctor had said to me, I was nervous about interacting with people, but finally got the courage to ask
Me: “When someone checks my record on the computer can they see what a visit was for?”
Therapist: “What do you mean?”
Me: “I was in the ER a couple of days ago. The doctor looked at my record and accused of making seventeen visits to the ER seeking drugs. The only thing at [Medical Complex] that I’ve used recently was my physical therapy. Doesn’t my record say what the visits were for?”
Therapist: *in shock* “Yes! It will definitely say if it was physical therapy, your doctor, or the ER.”
(Then, she showed me my record on the computer with physical therapy listed eighteen times, including that day’s visit. I didn’t tell her how bad the ER doc made me feel or how sick I was before the migraine went away on its own, but she decided to report him anyway. It must have been the final straw because when I had to go to the ER about four months later I discovered that doctor had been fired.)