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“You need to lose weight. That's why you're limping on that knee. Take some weight off and it will lessen the pressure inside your knee.”A brilliant, and wrong diagnosis.I had marked “yes” to the question Did I have uneven gait or difficulty walking? on the new patient questionnaire. So someone snagged a passing neurologist and had him make a snap judgement after watching me walk about 20 steps down the hall.He took no history, did not look at chart notes - and managed to completely offend me in 5 minutes or less. He saw my weight and looked no further.I limp on that knee because it got torn up when I was a skinny teenager, and I have chronic tendonitis with some pretty painful acute episodes. The meniscus is fine. The cartilage is fine. But the tendons going over the top of my kneecap are not - and weight makes not one bit of difference.Add Menieres syndrome, and sometimes my gait looks like I'm 3 sheets to the wind.Lesson this young doctor learned: snap judgements can have painful consequences. He learned to review the History & Physical and don't make snide remarks about a woman's weight.Listen to your patient. I told the anesthesiologist (who looked about 12 yrs old) “Don't put me under! It's a brief little procedure, a LEEP surgery. A spinal is all I need.” Anesthesia usually leaves me throwing up my stomach lining.Sooo. He dropped by as I was coming out of the anesthesia I very specifically told him not to use. I'm painfully heaving up everything in my system as he's wringing his hands and explaining that he only used enough for a small child!Lesson learned: listen to your patient! They've lived in their body a lot longer than the 10-15 minutes you've been talking to them.

On certain days of the week I spend my mornings doing the same series of things to a large number of people. I take down their vitals, I go over a short questionnaire they should have filled out in advance, I draw their blood, and I administer a TB test.Everything is ready before I open the door to the patient. The syringe for the TB test is prepped and ready, and the needle and tubes are laid out in order.As a patient, you won’t see me get out any needle or syringe. They are sitting on tray right behind me, next to the chair I put you in. I’ll turn slightly in my chair to grab what I need, and by the time a needle is in your field of vision, it will be unwrapped and ready to go.The sharps box is on the same table, so I turn back around and discard the needles as soon as I am done with them. Once you leave the room I’ll set up for the next patient, and then I do it all over again.Disposing of a used needle is second nature. I don’t think I’d even be physically capable of not throwing it straight into that box, it’s just an automatic action, like breathing. The same goes for maintaining the sterile state of anything I use on a patient.Accidents do happen when we draw blood, but we don’t forget to use new needles on each patient. I’ve stabbed myself (that was in an ER setting, though) but I’ve never put a used needle in a patient. Never.

I had to serve a dermatologist evading service once. It was a real estate dispute and he was the agent for service of process and sole owner of a LLC owning several properties. He operated multiple offices and I couldn’t get past his various reception desks and medical assistants to serve him with a summons and complaint. He was impossible to intercept before and after office hours and otherwise couldn’t be located.So I booked an online appointment as a new patient, complaining of a persistent itch associated with a skin rash. I scheduled the first morning appointment so I wouldn’t have to lurk in his office if he ran late and it was early enough to minimize any planned hospital rounds and any medical emergencies. I arrived 15 minutes before the appointment time and filled out the medical questionnaire and provided my insurance information (I inverted digits in my social security number, a mistake that anybody could make). I again told the receptionist that I didn’t need a full appointment and only needed to see the doctor for literally 60 seconds. The receptionist refused to call the doctor to the front desk.I was shown to the examining room and asked to disrobe. I declined and told the medical assistant that it was a personally embarrassing matter and I would only speak to the doctor. I remained clothed for a fast getaway. The doctor came in, asked about thre rash. I told him that I was here under false pretenses and was serving him with a lawsuit. He was stunned and complained that his property manager handled all real estate matters. I took the time to show him the attachments to the lawsuit showing multiple emails and unreturned phone calls. He told me it was wrong to make a medical appointment under false pretenses and I rejoined that it was wrong not to pay just debts. I said, he’d been served and we’d address the matter in court and left his office. As I left, he shouted that he was going to bill my insurance company for the office visit. I shouted back that he shouldn’t compound his legal difficulties with insurance fraud.My client (also a healthcare professional) was out of her office until the afternoon and I couldn’t tell her that service had been effected. When she called me, she told me there was a blistering message on her machine from the doctor and a check in the full amount of amounts owed set out in the complaint had been couriered to her office. We suspect the property manager lost that contract.