Unmet needs: why we're afraid to talk to our doctors

 

This is a Facebook comment that I want to turn into a blog post, because these are important issues, and I assume I am hardly the only one who is struggling. It's an unpopular view about which hardly anyone speaks, and I think this is due to guilt, shame and being intimidated by the labyrinthine nature of the medical system right now. It causes more stress than it solves, so I try to avoid it as much as I can, and avoiding medical issues and hoping they will go away is NOT a good strategy over the long haul - and I don't even think we're at the midpoint yet. I normally use a lot of images to break up text, but this is going down as is. 

I have one of those phoned-in "doctor's appointments" scheduled in a few minutes and am waiting by the phone with my stomach in knots, though I was told the call could come any time between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. 

I am dreading it. After six months, I have so many unaddressed issues built up that I don't trust myself NOT to spill them, become angry and alienate the only source of help I have right now. She has a history of discounting and countering virtually everything I say. Medication is also a huge problem, and based on past experience I fear she will withhold some things in a way that "shouldn't bother me" because it didn't bother anyone else she has treated. 

I am being told, not WHAT to feel, but the only way TO feel, because, surprise surprise, there's a pandemic on and we're made to feel very guilty and even shamed for having medical needs that have gone unmet for half a year (and most of this stuff has been going on for 2 years or so while I have actively searched for a better doctor). 

In my case, it's psychiatric, so I virtually don't have a leg to stand on, and based on 50 years of dismal experience, this almost cannot go well. Everyone has their own bag of bricks to lug around, and each one is different, but I have been trying very hard to convince myself that this stuff isn't important, and I should just be a big girl and suck it up. That is the impression I get, anyway. 

I try to keep negative medical things off my Facebook page because it is NOT a popular view to criticize doctors, who have been lifted up to the status of selfless heroes when many of them are just not doing their regular jobs and are leaving people (not just me) with no safety net, which is considered some kind of indulgence, I think. My main hope is that she will have an anonymous intern handle it, which she has frequently done over the past two years. My encounters with her, though rare, are incredibly stressful and leave me feeling drained and discounted. And I can't "just get another doctor", so that door is closed to me. 

Wish me luck, please.

Are we being shamed for needing medical help?

I am about to express a very unpopular view which I believe everyone is afraid to talk about.

No one needs reminders of the COVID pandemic and how it has utterly swallowed the energy and attention of the medical industry worldwide. I believe people are being shamed into keeping their medical concerns to themselves and not taking up their doctors' valuable time. I have not spoken to my doctor in four months and am told to "just go to Emergency" if I have a serious problem. My last trip to Emergency yielded me a wildly off-target diagnosis (made on the fly by whoever was on call), prompting my doctor to become very angry with me and accuse me of "trying to diagnose myself" when it turned out to be wrong. 

I am seeking another family doctor, but I realize this very likely won't happen. I am not trying to whine about this, but over the long term, people are going to die from medical neglect and the absence of the kind of preventative care which can intercept relapses and prevent bouts of very serious illness. Elderly people who are already isolated and chronicaly ill are being cut off completely if they have no computer access. 

We all seem to feel very guilty about asking for help, but this is a situation created by dismissive doctors who do NOT make their regular patients a priority. I even feel bad about posting this, because I will be seen as disloyal to the cause and not praising doctors enough for being so heroic. But I'd have more respect for them if they would so much as attempt to do their jobs.

I know a woman who is afraid she is having cancer symptoms. When she finally got through to the intern filling in for the intern who is filling in for her doctor, she was told, "No, that doesn't sound like cancer to me, but if you're having anxiety about it, just go to Emergency." She did not, because Emergency triggers overwhelming anxiety and panic about past abusive treatment, and (once again) she has been conditioned to feel guilty for taking up the doctors' valuable time. 

The fact that she has a "history" of anxiety and depression seems to negate her credibility entirely. But to even mention this scenario as a possibility only results in more anger and dismissal. It comes across as a completely unfair and even cruel and selfish accusation. "Of course" they "would never" do such an unprofessional thing to the public, their dedication has never wavered, and you are wrong to even think it, let alone express it to anyone.

In any case, the "care" in Emergency is based on diagnoses made in a few minutes, with no medical history. There is a strange silence and a hole in media reporting on this issue that makes me very uneasy. The ONLY article I have ever seen on this taboo subject was about young people in Latin America, the shortage of support for mood disorders, and how young people have newfound medical and emotional/social support through Zoom calls. This is the party line. After fifty years of brick walls, I am getting tired of defending behaviour which is not only arrogant and uncaring, but completely unacceptable in a "first world" country.