People skills
I really dislike my university-assigned primary care provider. She's this weird mix of perky cheerfulness, patronising, and impersonal. She seems to be greatly enjoying her job but I never get the sense that she really cares about me.
Today's appointment: I went in to complain about my neck hurting and in addition to getting that sorted out, got a conversation about unrelated bloodwork and disbelieved about the faint numbness in my left hand because even though I mentioned that it comes and goes, the difference wasn't enough to register when she poked me with a qtip.
And on my way out I realised that chances are that I'll never mention to her why it is that I have reason to know about nerve damage and be looking at maps of the nerves in my hand. I'm sure that she's at least competent as a doctor (or she wouldn't be employed by an Ivy League university) but I don't trust her on a gut level. I expect to be treated with some level of disdain, disbelief, and condescension if I tell her potentially stigmatising things about myself.
I'm documenting this here because it's an angle of people skills I'd never considered. I can definitely understand why a patient may not follow orders from a doctor they don't like, but in this case I don't even want to tell them about my problems in the first place because I find them unlikeable.
Today's appointment: I went in to complain about my neck hurting and in addition to getting that sorted out, got a conversation about unrelated bloodwork and disbelieved about the faint numbness in my left hand because even though I mentioned that it comes and goes, the difference wasn't enough to register when she poked me with a qtip.
And on my way out I realised that chances are that I'll never mention to her why it is that I have reason to know about nerve damage and be looking at maps of the nerves in my hand. I'm sure that she's at least competent as a doctor (or she wouldn't be employed by an Ivy League university) but I don't trust her on a gut level. I expect to be treated with some level of disdain, disbelief, and condescension if I tell her potentially stigmatising things about myself.
I'm documenting this here because it's an angle of people skills I'd never considered. I can definitely understand why a patient may not follow orders from a doctor they don't like, but in this case I don't even want to tell them about my problems in the first place because I find them unlikeable.