OTP: What's wrong with me???

Warning --- Long!!!



Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. * My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
* I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. * I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all. *
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. * He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. * I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him! *

Uggggh!!! * I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. * I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. * And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. * Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! * Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. * After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

..
..
..
..

Donna
..
..
..
..
1.) ANGELS EXIST, but some times, since they don't all have wings, we
call them FRIENDS......


2.) J.K.M.A.

"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!



Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL


Been there. Done that. Have the T-Shirt.

If I've got this right, (and I've got several dozen asthma admissions of my
own for comparison) the asshole of a hospitalist, who is only a hospitalist
because so one can stand him and he can't maintain a practice of clients
who will see him willingly, took on a very experienced asthma/lung problem
case on a Sunday night.

Not only did you know far more about what was appropriate for you at that
juncture, you were also on a boatload of steroids.

He was likely just trying to clear his allocation of discharges any way he
could. After all the book says an asthma admission goes home in three
days. He quit reading at that point of course.

Only thing I would have done differently or have done differently at that
point. They pretty much have to give you at least one dose of oral
medication before they discharge you. I throw it up pretty promptly. I
mean usually the only reason I'm in is because I need a higher dose of
steroids than I can tolerate orally.

If you have the energy or inclination to make a complaint now when you are
home and what they consider rational, by all means do so. Heaven only
knows what misery said hospitalist is inflicting on others who are not able
to defend themselves.

Jo

absolutely follow up with your complaints. Hospitalists are supposed to be
communicating with your regular doctors on a regular basis and this guy
obviously wasn't. And his attitude stunk. You've been a patient enough
times that you know how things are supposed to go and just knowing you on
line you are far from a difficult patient. In fact I suspect you are far
more forgiving of stuff than I would be.

YOU are a perfect candidate for the program. If even on e doctor learns
that most patients with chronic illnesses are very well versed in their
medical issues and thoroughly understand their illness and how it effects
them that is a good thing.

Karen

"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!



Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

..
..
..
..

Donna
..
..
..
..
1.) ANGELS EXIST, but some times, since they don't all have wings, we
call them FRIENDS......


2.) J.K.M.A.

"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!


And it was..... and it needed every word. I am sorry to say that my
wife can write one just as long.... Its the steroids we take Donna.
Your hospital is very lucky to not have lawyers running up and down their
halls. I am very lucky that my head is not lopsided but could still happen.
:-)
Harv

Donna, I think your question should have been, "What's wrong with that
hospitalist"? I don't know what he would be good at, but it is definitely
not at his present job. He's the kind that make people hate hospitals, no
matter how bad they need to be in one.

I had hospitalists (not just one - a different one every day) on one of my
admissions last year, or maybe year before now. They're beginning to get
mixed up in my head! (Can I just blame that on old age?) And I don't think
either one had even looked at my chart until he came into my room to see me.
I can't say that I approve of that practice, but we're probably stuck with
it.

Thank God for your lung doctor. At least he took care of his patient. Be
sure you hang onto him. I surely hope and pray it will be a long time
before you need him for anything like that again.

Enjoy your own bed and familiar things. And if you want to follow up, do so
by all means.

Gwen




"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!



Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

..
..
..
..

Donna
..
..
..
..
1.) ANGELS EXIST, but some times, since they don't all have wings, we
call them FRIENDS......


2.) J.K.M.A.

Donna,
I think your hospitalist must have been hired after he was fired from my
hospital. He sounds very much like the nutcase who took me off all my
BP pills and then yelled at me because my BP had gone sky high. I
understand the need for these hospitalists (to give our docs a break)
but I sure wish they would listen to the patient before making
decisions. I'm happy you are home again and getting well.

Ann

donna, that's truly one of the worst accounts of hospital incompetence
i've ever heard, and having worked in hospitals, i've heard plenty.
i'm so glad you were alert and tough enough to stand up for yourself,
and bless your lung doctor for taking good care of you. if you've got
the energy, please do follow up with your complaint so no one else has
to deal with that brute.
most important, though, i'm glad you're out of there and doing better.
take care,

diane

Not a darn thing.. what is wrong is this hospitalist... not you.
Sounds like someone is incompitant(sp?) meaning the hospital guy. Thats all
we need is someone else stepping on our doctors toes (ie insurance cos) and
that is not good at all. Maybe if people start suing the hospital over these
hospitalist then they will wake up and see it isn't working.
I really feel bad that this happened to you. You should not have had to
worry about any of this at all. You should have had to worry about your
health and getting better nothing else. I got a little angry when I read
your post not at you but at how you were treated.. it is just not right!
I am glad that you vented you need to get it all out.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((DonnaG)))))))))))))) ))))))))))))))))

"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!



Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

..
..
..
..

Donna
..
..
..
..
1.) ANGELS EXIST, but some times, since they don't all have wings, we
call them FRIENDS......


2.) J.K.M.A.

I've seen answers from Jo, Karen, Harv & Gwen & I say, "Hear, hear!" to all!
No, it wasn't fair for your pulmonologist & the nurses to be in the middle of
this but, and I want you to take this to heart, you ARE NOT the one who put
them there! Ultimately, they were in that position because they chose to
advocate in defending their patient from an unreasonable doctor. Believe me,
it was that other doctor they blamed this on & I base that opinion on having
worked on the inpaitent florrs of hospitals.

When your lung doctor called you a strong lady, that was a compliment! There
is nothing, i repeat nothing, wrong with standing up to a doctor who is doing
all in his power to compromise your care. Oh, and nurses are way too
accustomed to being caught in the middle. It's a damn shame, but it's the
reality. They generally have a good read on who's being unreasonable and
they want appropriate care for the patient.

The extreme difference between the care the first and second hospitalists
provided you are clear markers of how this job should and should not be done.
I urge you to follow up on the complaint you filed, perhaps adding even more
detail now that the heat of the moment has passed. In doing so, you may save
some future patient from the same fate. it is also possible that this
doctor's behavior arose out of some current problems in his life that need to
be addressed. Your complaint could be what forces that to happen and could
ultimately save the doctor from even more problems in the future.

--
Nann
remove the Gator cheer to email me
Change everything. Love & forgive.

Oh goodness gracious Donna, I can't believe you had to go thru all that. I
mean I believe you but I cant believe them.

I would file any and all complaints you can. That was dispicable (sp) and
unprofessional.

I wish I could have been there, they would have had a fight on their hands
and they would have really taken better care of you. Man, what rear ends.

I feel for you sweetie and hope you never have to go thru that again. Is
there another hospital you can go to so that you won't get that dr again.


--
Love and Hugs to all
Jo the squirrely one
I am nuts about you.
Warning --- Long!!!

Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?

With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

Donna

Well said, Jo. I would have been there with you and that guy
would never want to practise medicine again, he's be too scared
of meeting up with people like us. I am usually pretty laid back
but let someone like that try to do his thing and my red hair
takes over! You just don't treat people like that! What happened
to the part about "First do no harm'?

Donna, thanks for sharing that with us and may you never run into
a situation like that again.

Joan

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:26:46 -0700, "Squirrely" <sqjo@sonic.net>
wrote:

>Oh goodness gracious Donna, I can't believe you had to go thru all that. I
>mean I believe you but I cant believe them.
>
>I would file any and all complaints you can. That was dispicable (sp) and
>unprofessional.
>
>I wish I could have been there, they would have had a fight on their hands
>and they would have really taken better care of you. Man, what rear ends.
>
>I feel for you sweetie and hope you never have to go thru that again. Is
>there another hospital you can go to so that you won't get that dr again.

"Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...




Warning --- Long!!!



"Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?"

i have. often. but in this case you're internalizing the actions of
someone else as reacting to/reflecting you, as if his actions were the
result of something you've said or done, or something that you are, when
that isn't the case at all.

this hospitalist's behavior and arrogance was not about you, sweetie. if
his behavior, attitudes and reactions had been about you, he would have
behaved like your lung doctor and nurses did, by being concerned for your
welfare.

this hospitalist's behavior was all about him, donnag--his agendas, his
efficiency, his assessment, his command of the situation, his determination,
his will, his personal power, his being thwarted, his anger and arrogance
about it because of his insecurities. he didn't see you at all, donnag. he
couldn't see you. he couldn't see you because he was so trapped by his own
reflection of himself. his self-entrapment caused him to depersonalize and
dehumanize you, and your physical condition, to him. he couldn't get
outside of his preoccupation with himself, his needs/desires/emotions long
enough to even have any degree of compassion for you. compassion requires
that self-preoccupation retreats and that recognition and connection comes
forward to make a beneficial and kind difference for someone else. in this
kind of a critical situation and this profession, self must give way to
benefit the patient. if a doctor cannot do that, then the doctor is
deluding himself about being in the right profession.

lay aside your self-doubting questions, sweetie. you did right by yourself,
as you should have and that's amazing of you, considering the vulnerable
position you were in.

as to the next step in this episode--if your nurses and lung doctor haven't
already reported his inappropriate patient care behavior and attitudes
towards you, to the proper level, i'd be surprised. but it can't hurt to
have your input, as his patient, added to the report about him to that
hospital's patient care administrative board. this hospitalist needs to be
repremanded by higher-ups and told that his patient care behavior and
attitudes are appallingly unacceptable and could have put a patient at risk
and the hospital at risk for lawsuit. whether that will make a difference
or not, in his future behavior, is unpredictable. but you will have put
closure on this incident for yourself, which in and of itself is important
for your personal peace of mind.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((donnag))))))))))))))))))) ) my heart aches that you
went through this experience. reading your recount brought back some very
unpleasant experiences i had in the past. experiences i thought i had put
closure on, (though not pro-actively by addressing them at administrative
levels), and that i thought were forgotten. i'm so sorry these kinds of
events happened to you.

kate



With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
contemplating how to change things.

As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
life.

Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
originally posted the question about whether or not you would
participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
of this stuff!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
positive and negative!

***
My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
grief)!!!

Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.

Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
hospital.

Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
hospital as soon as possible.

In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
and that is what we did.

On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
certain things.

Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)

Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
to refuse them all.

Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
responsible for what I did to him!

Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
one bit.

My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
would take care of the situation. I said fine.

Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
either!

But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
me he wanted to send me home.

This all was on monday, and I ended up being discharged and sent home on
wednesday, after we had done my infusions, had transitioned my IV
steroids and antibiotics to oral and had had a good 24 hours to make
sure things were ok, had transitioned me from the nmt's to my inhalers,
and had worked at better controlling my cough and sinuses.

God, what a mess it all was. And, if that all wasn't bad enough and
stressful enough, in the middle of all that nonsense on monday, my
brother called me to tell me that someone from the hospital had called
him and told him that I had been in a very serious car accident. Then
they called back and said, whoops, wrong patient. Wow, talk about
stressing my family out big time!!! Since my brother didn't get the
persons name that called, they have no idea where the call originated in
the hospital, so can't do anything about it. They then called my brother
a third time and were asking him some billing questions which he told
them they needed to talk to me about since I was over 18 and that was a
breech of confidentiality issues. After all that, my brother tried
to call me at the hospital only to be told that they didn't have anyone
by that name admitted there. Oh brother!!!
He finally tracked me down via my best friend who had both my room
number and my room phone number.

In any case, the whole stay turned in to one big nightmare and I was NOT
happy about any of it!!!

So glad to be back in my own home and in my own bed, but I'm sure in
every nook and cranny of my chart, they probably have written what a
horrible and difficult patient I was/am and how I gave them all a hard
time!

Definitely felt like I was ready for the padded room by the time it was
all said and done!!! LOLOLOL

..
..
..
..

Donna
..
..
..
..
1.) ANGELS EXIST, but some times, since they don't all have wings, we
call them FRIENDS......


2.) J.K.M.A.

Wow - everyone has said it all. Even if it is a short note or even if all
the energy you have is to copy this email please do it Donna. It could be
the hospital is waiting for some paperwork in his file from someone for them
to act. Sometimes eveyrone else figures someone has says something.

In the meantime get well! Hopefully the next infusions will go well and
some of these things will start to work. I would hope for good weather but
don't want it too hot either.

Thinking of you and offering you some bubble wrap to give you a cushy hug,
Kelly

"d'huit" <threecedars1@comcast2.net> wrote in message
news:SIKdnR1qC8jg_5vVnZ2dnUVZ_smnnZ2d@comcast.com. ..
>
> "Donna G." <DKGBeeker@webtv.net> wrote in message
> news:20422-48058332-1023@storefull-3117.bay.webtv.net...
>
>
>
>
> Warning --- Long!!!
>
>
>
> "Have you ever asked yourself this question? What's wrong with me? Why
> can't I seem to get along with this individual? What am I doing wrong?"
>
> i have. often. but in this case you're internalizing the actions of
> someone else as reacting to/reflecting you, as if his actions were the
> result of something you've said or done, or something that you are, when
> that isn't the case at all.
>
> this hospitalist's behavior and arrogance was not about you, sweetie. if
> his behavior, attitudes and reactions had been about you, he would have
> behaved like your lung doctor and nurses did, by being concerned for your
> welfare.
>
> this hospitalist's behavior was all about him, donnag--his agendas, his
> efficiency, his assessment, his command of the situation, his
> determination,
> his will, his personal power, his being thwarted, his anger and arrogance
> about it because of his insecurities. he didn't see you at all, donnag.
> he
> couldn't see you. he couldn't see you because he was so trapped by his
> own
> reflection of himself. his self-entrapment caused him to depersonalize
> and
> dehumanize you, and your physical condition, to him. he couldn't get
> outside of his preoccupation with himself, his needs/desires/emotions long
> enough to even have any degree of compassion for you. compassion requires
> that self-preoccupation retreats and that recognition and connection comes
> forward to make a beneficial and kind difference for someone else. in
> this
> kind of a critical situation and this profession, self must give way to
> benefit the patient. if a doctor cannot do that, then the doctor is
> deluding himself about being in the right profession.
>
> lay aside your self-doubting questions, sweetie. you did right by
> yourself,
> as you should have and that's amazing of you, considering the vulnerable
> position you were in.
>
> as to the next step in this episode--if your nurses and lung doctor
> haven't
> already reported his inappropriate patient care behavior and attitudes
> towards you, to the proper level, i'd be surprised. but it can't hurt to
> have your input, as his patient, added to the report about him to that
> hospital's patient care administrative board. this hospitalist needs to
> be
> repremanded by higher-ups and told that his patient care behavior and
> attitudes are appallingly unacceptable and could have put a patient at
> risk
> and the hospital at risk for lawsuit. whether that will make a difference
> or not, in his future behavior, is unpredictable. but you will have put
> closure on this incident for yourself, which in and of itself is important
> for your personal peace of mind.
>
> (((((((((((((((((((((((((donnag))))))))))))))))))) ) my heart aches that
> you
> went through this experience. reading your recount brought back some very
> unpleasant experiences i had in the past. experiences i thought i had put
> closure on, (though not pro-actively by addressing them at administrative
> levels), and that i thought were forgotten. i'm so sorry these kinds of
> events happened to you.
>
> kate
>
>
>
> With my last hospital stay, I have to admit to feeling this way and
> contemplating how to change things.
>
> As many of us know, being in the hospital is hard enough. We lose a bit
> of our independence and often go sleep deprived. It can be most
> frustrating at times when you aren't feeling well and you just want to
> get better and get back home to your own place and to your own way of
> life.
>
> Below is some of my frustrations from my last hospital stay and why I
> originally posted the question about whether or not you would
> participate in the program that helps train medical students. I almost
> had to laugh when I originally got the brochure in the mail, especially
> after having gone through what I did. While still in the hospital, I
> layed in my bed and thought to myself, ya know, I could write a book on
> doctor/patient relationships and what works and what doesn't. I
> thought, I should write a book on what doctors could learn from their
> patients if they only took a second to pay attention and listen! Then I
> got the brochure on the program I posted about, and had to kind of
> laugh. Sometimes I have to kind of marvel at Gods sense of humor in all
> of this stuff!!!
>
> Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this and how you would have
> handled the situation or changed things. Would you still follow up on
> the situation afer you came home? All input appreciated - both
> positive and negative!
>
> ***
> My doctor is the only one that saved my sanity with this last hospital
> stay. If it hadn't been for him, I literally would have checked myself
> out of the place and had something have happened to me, would have sued
> the pants off of them (the hospital and the doctor who gave me so much
> grief)!!!
>
> Unfortunately, all the hospitals in this area are going to what they
> call hospitalists to treat you while you are an inpatient.
>
> Hospitalists are doctors who do nothing but just treat inpatients. They
> don't have an office or anything where they see patients outside of the
> hospital.
>
> Since all they treat are inpatients, they never really truly know a
> patients' whole history, which at times can be a problem. Also, as is
> always the case, these doctors have the administrators and the insurance
> companies barking down their backs to get the patients out of the
> hospital as soon as possible.
>
> In my recent stay, the hospitalist doctor that was attending doctor for
> me, was a very cocky, non-communicative guy who decided I wasn't all
> that bad and was going to send me home sunday evening. Problem is, he
> hadn't even begun to switch my steroids over from IV to oral. I was on
> 60 mg of pred every 6 hours and he wanted to just send me home without
> going over to oral at the rate of 60 mg per day. My body just does
> not make that transition easily and sometimes ( about 50% of the time )I
> backslide considerably with my breathing when we make that transition.
> I tried to explain that to him and he just blew me off and said it
> won't be a problem. He clearly had not looked at my records at all. He
> also wanted me to taper my oral pred down by 20 mg increments which
> never works for me at all. Mind you, I wanted to go home, but not at the
> risk of having to come back anytime soon! Of course, we were having
> this discussion at about 9:00 sunday evening and I was so exhausted from
> everything by then anyways. I also was having trouble finding a ride
> home at that hour, so the nurse just told me to say I couldn't find a
> ride home and they wouldn't be able to kick me out before the morning,
> and that is what we did.
>
> On monday morning, my own pulmonologist came in and I told him what was
> going on and he said, no way are you anywhere near ready to go home yet.
> He said, they haven't even transitioned you from IV steroids to oral,
> from the IV antibiotics to oral, and they haven't gotten you
> transitioned from doing the nmt's over to your standard inhalers, not to
> mention that you are still coughing way way too much. He and I also
> talked about my monthly infusions that were due that day and the next,
> and he said lets just keep you here a day or two more, get you
> transitioned over on the steroids, antibiotics, and inhalers, work at
> getting the cough better controlled, and do your infusions while you are
> here so that we can also better control the side effects you get from
> them. I said that was fine and he said he would take care of it all.
> I also told him of what had gone on the night before, and he said, well,
> this guy doesn't now how complicated your case is and how you respond to
> certain things.
>
> Well, needless to say, the hospitalist was NOT a happy camper about me
> talking to my own lung doctor and he came in my room all furious and
> told me there was nothing wrong with me and he was going to discharge me
> home. I said no, you are not, you need to go read the notes from my
> doctor. He was so angry, that he then started telling me that if I
> didn't go home, that my insurance wasn't going to pay for my oxygen and
> that he wanted the nurses to take me off my oxygen for a few hours to
> see what would happen, I told the nurses I wasn't going to let them do
> that as I would be the one who would suffer in the end. (sheesh, they
> had turned my oxygen up the night before because every time I talked or
> coughed, my oxygen sats would drop drastically)
>
> Well then this doctor got even more angry that I wouldn't do what he
> said, so then about every 20 minutes or so, that doctor would come up
> with some new thing he wanted me to do or try, and I finally got fed up
> with it all and with him, as it wasn't really fair to the nurses to be
> caught in the middle of it all just because he was ticked off with me. I
> told the nurses, just let him write all the orders he wants, I am going
> to refuse them all.
>
> Long and short of it, I paged my lung doctor who came back to my room, I
> called the patient relations department and filed a complaint, and of
> course the hospitalist was even more furious that I had paged my own
> lung doctor again. I told my lung doctor what was going on and that
> I could not face that other guy one more time or I would not be held
> responsible for what I did to him!
>
> Uggggh!!! I was sooooo upset, which wasn't helping my breathing not
> one bit.
>
> My lung doctor told me I was a strong lady and to just trust him and he
> would take care of the situation. I said fine.
>
> Bless his heart, he shouldn't have had to have dealt with this nonsense
> either!
>
> But, he did stay true to his word and took care of it all. The next
> morning, I had an entirely different attending doctor who ran everything
> she did past my doctor and me. She even told me what my chest x-ray,
> bloodwork, etc showed, which the other guy had never communicated to me.
> In fact, that other guy never communicated anything to me until he told
> me he wanted to send me home.
>