An Open Request to American Physicians

An Open Request to American Physicians

When you are with a patient, please give the patient the courtesy of giving them the benefit of the doubt, that they may know what they’re talking about, and not immediately rely on your own pre-conceived ideas.  If physicians had done so in my earlier, more productive years, I may have been able to obtain a career that would have given some satisfaction and financial stability.  You are not only affecting people’s physical health, but their mental, economic and social health as well.

Unfortunately I’ve had too much experience with physicians who would not listen to me. 

• The first was an intern at my college, who thought the allergic rhinitis I was developing was all in my head.
• The second was the emergency room doctor who also worked at a local urgent care center. I went there because of cervical radiculopathy.  All he did was tell me not to use my arm, not even anything about using cold or heat to treat it.
• Then I decided to see the colleague of my friend’s brother-in-law as a primary care physician.  He would not listen to me.  He would not believe that my stomach got worse after I ate, not before.  I guess he didn’t bother to learn about food allergies.  Despite sinus infections, congestion and migraines, he never referred me to an allergist, even though I’d been through two rounds of allergy shots. His physician assistant diagnosed me with asthma.  I was at least forty then.  What topped it off was the severe pain I experienced during the pelvic exam he gave me.  He never stopped and never gave any indication of wanting to find out why it hurt me so much.  Right then and there I decided to quit the practice entirely.
• Three physicians failed to pay attention to my migraines, that they may have been due to an allergic trigger.
• I went to one allergist, at the practice I was sent to before in the past.  She told me that if it was below the head she couldn’t treat it.  Didn’t she know the mucus membranes did not stop past the throat? And what about food allergies?
• A gynecologist failed to give the sore cysts in my breasts and the continuous vaginal discharge any serious consideration, leaving me to fret, pursue a mammogram and use many fungal applications to try to stop the discharge.  Both symptoms improved after I started getting treated for my allergies.

Thankfully I now have a primary care physician who listens to me, as well as a good allergist who treats allergies as a result of the whole picture.  I only wished it hadn’t taken me at least twenty years to find them.  I don’t know what I could’ve done with those twenty years, but I bet it would've been more than I did.