Peter Ashenden
Monday, November 17, 2008
A recent article in The Chicago Tribune addressed the issue of how physicians treat their patients. The article cites several popular TV shows that have doctors who adopt a less-than-respectful approach to those in their care. It also raises the question-is TV influencing the real world ... or is the...
Kathy
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 01:57 AM
I have been totally discriminated, demeaned, and beyond disrespected by mental health care providers. In fact totally made to feel as if I were not only wasting their time, but that I was a waste, totally dehumanizing and without compassion, and even treated as if I were a criminal. I live in Cuyahoga County and people act as if it is a crime to be on disability and suffering and struggling to just survive. They are resentful of me at my local social security office and have deliberately made errors and done things to hold up my medicare part b, I have had my privacy and confidentiality broken for the sake of gossip within Lakewood, Ohio's, City Hall, I have had my mail interfered with and landlords lie and act like Feudal System was in full swing because everyone in this town had acces to my private health information, and social security info., but me, including the family of 7 brothers, that had me ghb'd, robbed, raped, trashed two of my cars, stalked me, etc these brothers family are part of Irish Cahtolic tight knit bar group that runs Lakewood and is virtually the major revenue for this City. They walk the streets with impunity, though they were the perpetrators of numerous crimes against my person and other women's (who are afraid and ashamed to go against the princes of Lakewood), these brothers' family and friends and relations within this community have gained access to and used my records against me and made it nearly impossible for me to get treatment for my BD and made me afraid to leave my apt. Consequently, I am moving as far away as I can from Cuyahoga County. I finally got medicare part b and am going to see a psychiatrist, for first time since Metro released me, where I was totally, mestreated and released to a homeless shelter and told kill myself if I want to. They also stole my shoes and never gave them back. Put me in a room with about 50 pairs of shoes men's and women's and told to see if I could find them, while they laughed. I never found a pair of shoes to fit and was discharged falling down in a pair of size 9, I wear a 7. So, this will actually be the first time in over 10 yrs. I will get to speak with a real Dr. and I pray Dr. Gao and the University Hospital Case Medical Center is going to help me and not share my private medical records with the City of Lakewood and it's ghb robbing raping bar brothers community. I WAS NEVER SO GRATEFUL TO FIND A WEBSITE IN MY LIFE AND HOPE TO FIND SOME REAL HELP AND SUPPORT. I AM NOT A CRIMINAL AND DID NOT CHOOSE THIS DISEASE. I FEEL I DESERVE TO BE TALKED TO AS A PERSON WITH INTELLIGENCE AND FEELINGS THAT ARE AS VALID AS THE HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS. I WAS ONCE AN RN I AM NOT MENTALLY RETARDED OR INCAPABLE OF MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT MY LIFE AND CARE. HEALTH CARE AS FAR AS I HAVE EXPERIENCED IT FOR MENTAL ILLNESS OVER PAST DECADES, is not care at all, it is punishment and abuse. Also beware of Lakewood Hospital's psychiatric ward unless your fomily has money or you do!!!! I am sick of being told to go to aa for psychiatric help, that just got me further targeted. Again beware of Lakewood Ohio if you have mental illness and ever require care of any kind!!!!!!
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HeyJude
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 09:47 PM
Peter...You have touched on an important aspect of our care. Person-centered care is critical to our overall health - we as patients should be proactive in seeing that we are respectfully treated and cared for by our physicians and health care providers.
My psychiatric doctor is affiliated with our local hospital. He has a team of 5 pdocs and several therapists and social workers. They are incredibly supportive and practice person-centered care in every aspect of treatment. I am very fortunate to be a part of this supportive and caring group of professionals.
The key, I believe, is that we consumers/patients be mindful of the services we are receiving. If we are unhappy with any part of our treatment/plan we should speak out. It's the only way changes and improvements will EVER take place.
Judy
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mrsfluff
Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Remember Bob Newhart? Well, forget it! There is no such thing - not that I know of anyway. What we used to know about the psychiatric profression is now null and void. Today, when you see a DOCTOR of psychiatry, you will get a few minutes and a prescription. PERIOD. It's called a medication consultation, an appointment wherein you become the guinea pig for all the new meds and they make out like bandits. They do not do any "talk therapy" like back in the old days. In fact, they usually know very little about you and what ails you. I, for one, have been through so many psychiatrists that most folks would probably find it hard to believe. They just DON'T CARE. It really is that simple. I could go on and on with the gorey details, but I won't. The bottom line is that I am not any better off than I was ten years ago. I did okay when I saw a therapist regularly - a good one will actually listen to what you have to say. They get paid a heck of a lot less, but in reality, do a great deal more of the work. So, unless you just want to waste your time and money, find yourself a decent therapist and try that approach first. If necessary, try out a med for interim help. But just remember: psychiatric meds are still very experimental.
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Staying focused
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 10:36 AM
Mrs. Fluff -
I'm sorry that you have experienced less than mental health care. I do know where you are coming from as I have had several doctors that were only interested in filling slots on their calendar, not the patient behind the appointment. I eventually made up my mind that I was going to change the situation and searched until I found a good doctor. It wasn't easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. However, I am going to give you some advice, please take it with an open mind. If you want good psychiatric care, then you must find it. It will not be easy, but it can be done. Making blanket statements that one state has friendly people, where another does not, does not make logical sense as there are unfriendly and friendly people everywhere. In fact, out of the 314 million or so in the US, there the good ones far out number the bad.
Having a mood disorder is a heavy burden, but unfortunately that is the burden that we get to carry. However, there are things that we can do about it. Stay focused on achieving what you want and you will get there. You owe it to your family, friends and most importantly, to yourself to get the care you need to be and stay well.
I wish you the very best in 2009.
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mrs fluff
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Thank you...I appreciate the time you have taken to comment. While there might be a doctor out there that is worth anything, he/she is hard to find. It sounds easy - "keep looking until you find..." but it is very difficult and extremely taxing. With each new doctor there is the building of a rapport, an emotional investment of sorts, that leaves you feeling even worse than before. Sorry, but I don't buy into defending these doctors...they should do what it is they are trained and expected to do. I don't excuse them at all. If they take your money and in turn do nothing more than dispense drugs, they are nothing more than common criminals. It is unacceptable. Period. And as far as friendly and unfriendly goes, I'm guessing you're not from NJ! I'm not at all saying there are no friendly people - that is obviously ridiculous. What I am saying is that you do not have the same, general attitude here as you do on the west coast (and really anywhere west of the east coast!) in terms of pleasantries. I have traveled all over the country, so I know of what I speak. The east coast, and namely this NY metropolitan area, is chock full of nasty people. Nevertheless, I will try to keep on keepin on...do I really have a choice? The best to you and a wonderful holiday season too!
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Anonymous
Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 07:00 PM
I have been extremely lucky to have had 2 psychiatrists in the 10 years since my diagnosis, both of whom were wonderful.
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MRSFLUFF
Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 07:50 PM
WOULD YOU MIND SHARING YOUR CITY? I'D LOVE TO ABLE TO FIND A GOOD DR. AND IF I HAPPEN TO BE NEARBY - GREAT, I HIT THE JACKPOT. OF COURSE, THEN THERE'S THE MATTER OF INSURANCE...
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Anonymous
Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 11:03 PM
I live in Ukiah, California. And I do have insurance which makes me very fortunate. My current doctor isn't taking new patients so I am doubly fortunate to have her as my pdoc.
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mrsfluff
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 07:47 AM
It figures...I'm in NJ! Oh, and I do have insurance...it's just a matter of who's willing to accept it and whether they have the tolerance to deal with that particular company. I know CA well...it's a very different world from where I am - people out there are NICE!
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William Malo
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 01:12 PM
Living both in rural Minnesota and the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, I have been treated by mental health professionals from both states. I am covered by Kaiser Permanente of Calfornia, and I must say, my care has always been exceptional.
I am a sculptor and do most of my casting at my studio in Northern Minnesota durng the summer months. Minnesota is my birth state and the resources for a visual artist far outweight those of California.
I was first diagnosed in Minnesota after suffering a severe emotional break, by an emergency room psychiatrist many, many years ago. I was prescribed Paxil and slogged through the following decade sickened and saddened by the questionable efficacy of the drug, eventually titrating my way free of the nausea and the noise.
A few years later, I suffered a totally debilitating physical collapse, followed by an exhaustive neurological evalution (18 months). Once again I was diagnosed as depressed, severely enough so to have somatisized the physical symptomology of chronic fatigue syndrome -- more antidepressants filled my cabinet. The side effects from these various products were unbearable and I would quit taking them after a few months of misery.
In 2004, after two years of physical fatigue and emotional numbness, the bottom fell out. I made a bloody attempt to free myself from the nightmare -- it was a feeble effort and I was hospitalized for the better part of a year. I underwent several series of ECT procedures and tested more meds yet I continued to slide into a nearly total psychic isolation. I petitioned and was released -- not a good idea.
Another attempt at suicide followed two years while summering in Minnesota -- this time I ended up in a Brainard, MN care facility -- Grace Unit of St Joseph Hospital.
Finally, after 40 years of stumbling along with this malady and its accompanying madness, a phsychiatrist whom I had never seen before in my life, informed me that he believed I had been misdiagnosed and was changing my medication -- night became day.
The antipsychotic Seroquel became my best friend -- and a low dose at that.
Within a few months I was up and running, well, at least walking.
It has now been just over a year and remarkably, I am already inching my way closer to a reasonably stable existence.
Both HMO healthcare systems, California's Kaiser Permanente and Minnesota's Grace Unit of St Joseph Hospital treated me with the compassionate professionalism, dedication and due respect I expected. While it took some time to recognize my special needs, there was never any lack of effort in attending to my personal well-being.
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Suzanne
Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Currently I am seeing a psychiatric nurse practictioner (have been w/ her for about 12 years) & she has been so wonderful. I started w/ her on the recommendation of my therapist after the pdoc I was seeing refused to try any other drug besides Depakote (have bp1) even though it wasn't helping w/ my depression (had been in a mixed episode). He thought as long as "the radio wasn't giving me special messages" (which had never been one of my symptoms!) that "this was as good as it was going to get."
Well, I refused to believe that this was the best quality of life I could expect w/ treatment once I finally got dxed properly (had been treated for unipolar depression since my 1st suicide attempt at 15 even though my mother was bp & did end up killing herself when I was a teenager). I was hopeful that w/ the proper dx & new treatments available I did not have to end up like my mother.
It took a year of aggressive trial & error & seeing the nurse practitioner weekly to get the right combo of meds, but she kept encouraging me & would sometimes spend an hour w/ me talking if I needed it & would only charge me for the 30 min. consultation fee. She was not in my "network" so I had to get special authorization so the ins. company paid a pittance, but at least something & she is so worth it.
She has called my mail-order medication service & provided documentation that a certain medication (Provigil) has been shown in the literature to be useful in treating bp as they denied it at 1st & she thought it would be helpful to me & it has helped me so much. They reversed their decision & are now covering it! She has accompanied (no charge) to stressful appts. that I had been avoiding due to high anxiety, but were necessary for me to do.
My therapist who does indiv. therapy & leads my DBT group also does EMDR for me at no charge as I have exhausted my ins. coverage for mental health therapy visits for the year & am paying out of pocket so that is really special of her. She believes it is really helpful for me (& so far it seems to be) so she wants to provide it for me regardless of whether I can pay or not. Some people are really in this field because they have compassion & want to help hurting people.
BUT my internal medicine doc treats me as not equal to her other patients, as a hypochondriac, as a pain in the a**, as too time-consuming. The last straw happened last week. I've had constant back pain that an MRI has shown is a degenerative disk disease that apparently cannot be "cured" (after consultation w/ 2 back docs) but must be treated w/ pain management so I can't get into see the pain management specialist for 2 mos. Meanwhile, I'm having trouble sleeping (not good for bp), walking, driving & doing basic household functions like emptying the dishwasher or dryer or things like cleaning up after I dropped a glass on the floor--intense pain.
Basically all I can do is sit, propped up by pillows. So this internal medicine doc has prescibed pain killers until I see the pain management doc. I can take them every 4 hours. I take one at 2:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m. (lying prone is very painful) then one in the late afternoon. So I called & left a message w/ her nurse to see if I could increase the DOSAGE to 1 1/2 pills (instead of the 1 I was taking) as doing the basic housework like bending activities was causing a lot of pain & the pills were not relieving it.
The nurse called back with a VERY snide attitude & said the doc will not prescribe a STRONGER pain medication (which is not what I asked for) & she recommends if bending causes pain to not bend over!!! So she needed an M.D. for that!
I called back & left a message that the nurse must have misinterpreted me as I asked about DOSAGE & not receiving a different pain medication & that even though I am a college drop-out I can deduce from her comment that since bending over causes me pain that I should not bend over that I should discontinue attempting to sleep since lying down causes pain or walking since walking causes pain.
I haven't heard back from the nurse, but of course, I am now trying to find a new doc as I do have many physical problems (high blood pressure & cholesterol, low thyroid, diabetes, low potassium, pernicious anemia & who knows what else that hasn't been discovered yet that need to be addressed & monitored).
I REALLY don't like automatically being treated as if I were a drug-seeking person. She ordered the MRI & has seen the results & the reports of both docs & the recommendations of going to a pain management doc (which I have now cancelled that appt. as I just don't think I could handle seeing someone who prescribes pain killers & then he would be looking at me "funny" & trying to see if I were faking it, but then again--there is the MRI w/ the physical evidence...
I think rather than go through being treated in such a disrespectful & hurtful way I'm just going to have to accept that I'm "suspect" because I am mentally ill & I'm nervous around docs & "act funny" because of that anxiety & then become guilty in their minds. Plus I had an overtdose 2 1/2 yrs. ago & I had been seeing this internal medicine doc for a long time & I think she thinks I betrayed her somehow for doing that.
Since my dx of bp, my ob/gyn also acts really different & can't get out of the room fast enough. My dentist seems OK w/ me. I take really good care of my teeth!!
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theathea
Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 06:18 PM
Peter, what an excellent post you wrote about this important subject.
It's too common for physicians (as well as psychiatrists and psychologists) to trivialize our problems or simply shove some SNRIs down our throats and send us on our merry way, or simply just give up on us.
I was submitted to a psychiatric ward for a month two years ago, and I was assigned a psychiatrist who would also be my physician while I was there. She shoved pills down my throat, gave me the SCID-II screening test, and she also made me even more suicidal than I already was.
When I was moved to the open ward, they told me to go home for the weekend. I said I didn't want to, that I wasn't ready, because my home reminded me of my suicidal ideation and depression and I was afraid it would trigger it. They literally forced me to go home and, as I feared, I ended up a suicidal mess again.
When I got back, my psychiatrist started pushing me to go back to school. I had been kicked out of school due to too much abscence (three months in total because of depression). This conversation took place in December, and I had been chronically suicidal for three consecutive months - and also unmedicated - and she said that I needed to go back to school in January and that she would arrange a meeting between myself, the school administration, and the ward staff. I opposed, I explained to her how I felt - though I left out that I felt like running to the top of the building and jump off - but it was as if she was deaf, she could care less about how anxious it made me feel.
She made the decision for me; I was going back to school in January and that was that apparently.
I confessed to a warden, crying on her shoulder, and she was appalled by the psychiatrist's behavior and said she would come with me for the next session and help me. The next session was a week later, my psychiatrist was still pushing the subject; she was talking as if it was settled - as if I had agreed to it. I actually broke down in tears then, and she asked me "What do you want to do?" to which I replied "I want to jump off a bridge". She managed to not be influenced by that statement at all, and continued on with planning my life - that's when the warden butted in and said, very carefully, that maybe it would be for the best if we put this plan on hold. My eyes lit up, and the psychiatrist agreed - though only after thinking about it for three minutes.
Then (however unrelated to my disorder as this might be - it's still horrible treatment) I decided to ask her, since she's a doctor and all, about how I hadn't had my period for three years and that I was worried about being infertile.
Three years prior to that, I had begun taking the depo provera contraceptive (the "p-shot"), and despite me quitting after eight months, I hadn't had my period since then. The first injection of depo provera was injected while I was undergound an abortion (I asked the doctors to do it, cos I really didn't want to go through an abortion ever again) - so those two things made me really worried and I was afraid that something wasn't right.
This was our conversation:
Me: I haven't had my period in three years, I'm so worried!
Her: What do you want that for?
Me: My period...?
Her: Yes, what do you need it for?
Me: Uh.. to feel like a woman? To feel normal? To know that nothing is wrong?!
Her: Pfffft, you don't need your period for that.
Me: Uhm.. ok. But what about infertility? I'm afraid that I can't get pregnant.
Her: You're 20, are you planning to get pregnant any time soon?
Me: I guess not, but--
Her: When you want to get pregnant you'll go to a doctor and he'll take care of that for you. Anything else?
Me: Uhm.. yeah, I keep getting urethral infections a lot. My mother is worried so she told me to tell you, I don't think it's anything to worry about.
Her: How long has this been going on for? How often do you get them?
Me: For some years now, I get them a couple times per month.
Her: Oh my!! We better send you straight over to radiology to get an ultrasound.
Me: .... o.... k...
"Frustration" does not cover it.
In January, she had decided that it was my time to leave. I told her I wasn't ready, but she didn't care - she said that I wasn't ill enough to stay there. I guess that's fair, there might be other people, who need help more than I do, waiting for an opening.
I told my friend there that my biggest fear was ending up in the same place that I had been. I left, all I got for my journey was a prescription and a "Hope I never see you again".
Two months later, I was back. Two years later, I've finally been able to climb myself out of that dark pit... but not with her help.
I got a new physician and he is awesome! He helps me with everything and he understands my situation; he knows several bipolars so he knows how we work and what we need. He's an angel.
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Peter Clueless
Monday, December 08, 2008 at 12:36 PM
you have no clue Mr Hitler Ashendenon, no clue what its like to live with thie illness
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Anonymous
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 07:11 AM
the most important thing a doctor can do for their patient is listen. unfortunately, most doctors really do not take the time to really listen to what their patients are telling them.
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