an update on the Icky Stuff, with Good News

[lolmac]

I had my follow-up appointment with my gastroenterologist earlier this week.-- this was Young Dr. Young, the one whose colonoscopy put me in hospital.

I was told that none of the 24 polyps they biopsied showed any signs of being precancerous.

Comments

[campylobacter]

Yay! on the good news from the biopsy reports.

I wonder of Young Dr. Young took a course in Patient Communication that (wrongly) advised he use grade skool level language to talk to patients, and to not say anything about adverse side effects or possible complications? It's not that hard to evaluate the level of comprehension of other speakers in a conversation. When he hears you speak with a college-grad level vocabulary, shouldn't that mean that he can go ahead and speak to you as an adult, not a little kid?

[lolmac]

Yeah -- I wonder if his communication style is the horrific mutant offspring of lame coursework and underlying bad interpersonal skills. The catch is, he's in the trenches now -- a practicing physician with people's lives in his hands, working in a particularly litigious part of the country. He'd damned well better have the 'nads for a steep learning curve -- and so far, most of what he's shown has been unprofessional oblivious arrogance. I think that he thinks he's arrived, not that he's just getting started.

I really think medical care on the Left Coast is of much higher quality than it is here in the East . . . I'm visiting Seattle next week, and I'm seeing my old optometrist while I'm there, because the guy I saw out here is an incompetent jackass who had no use for me once he found he couldn't upsell me a raft of expensive cosmetic crap surgery. I don't want freakin' eye surgery, I want a prescription for glasses that will actually correct my vision.

[thothmes]

Eeep! We like to think that medical care around here is quite good actually

[lolmac]

You're right! I'm either misspeaking or overgeneralising, or both. Not only a Florida thing, but probably a South Florida thing: the local "culture" is something of a gravity well with a point source. The resulting field distorts everything that comes in range.

[sidlj]

Yay for good news!

Boo for Young Dr. Stupid.

[dbskyler]

I realize colonoscopies are unpleasant, especially with the horrific after-care you got, but please don't let the experience dissuade you from getting another one at the medically appropriate time. With 24 polyps, even though they were all benign, I think you're in a higher-than-average risk group, and you should seek expert advice on when to get screened again. (And by expert advice, I mean someone who's not Young Dr. Young.)

[lolmac]

Mind-reader. That's exactly what we're planning on doing! Fortunately, I have a primary care person (a nurse practitioner, actually) who will refer me to a different specialist.

[jackwabbit]

I'm so glad the histopath didn't show any signs of neoplasia

[lolmac]

This. The vocabulary adjustment you describe has also been part of my life for as long as I can remember; intelligent people test each other out on first contact and generally sigh with relief when they identify the ones for whom they don't need to filter the language down.

I do it myself -- more often for financial jargon than for computer jargon, since most of the people with whom I interact are above average with computers, but very few people outside my field know the financial jargon at all. "Ongoing client education" is one of the bywords of the place I work (where we want to empower our clients so they can make good decisions with us, not confuse them so they'll accept what we do without question).

The vocabulary adjustment is so familiar to me that it took me until this time around, with my cynicism shield in place, before I realised that it had never happened. I've talked to this guy half a dozen times by now, and he still talks down to me, so I must assume that he always talks down to every patient and knows no other

[jackwabbit]

THIS:

"we want to empower our clients so they can make good decisions with us, not confuse them so they'll accept what we do without question"

I am the animal's advocate, but the client is my boss.

And yes, I adjust based on the client. Most can handle middle-of-the-road medical jargon. Some can handle none at all and some know more than me. I learned to adjust for them years ago naturally, though one couple, a biochemist and a physician, are memorable in my education because they didn't tell me their jobs until AFTER I explained hyperadrenocorticism. Yay. (They were awesome, though. I loved those clients!) Live and learn, right? ;)

I do tend to type my discharges in simpler terms, though. Earlier tonight, I caught myself using "arthrodesis" and I changed it to "fusing the joint surgically." That only makes sense. It's a rare day when you need to say "neutrophil" for "white blood cell." After all, the client isn't the only one who might need to read and understand those. *grin*

[lothithil]

Super glad that 'things' are 'okay'.

Will be happy to tie the laces on your Ass Kicking Boots, if necessary!

(((Beth)))