<p>“You can cry if you want to.” Said by a real alarmist of a doctor just after I was married and moved to a new practice. He had diagnosed what later (after second opinions ) turned out to be a harmless cyst. I hadn’t been upset upon hearing that something was discovered, but when he said the bit about crying, I figured that there must be something major to cry <em>about</em>. After the second opinion I never went back - even though this was a reputable practice in a major city.</p>
<p>“Like, after the birth of my second son, the pediatrician who examined him exclaimed, “He’s perfect!””</p>
<p>Heh. My sister is an obstetrician, and has seen her share of infants. But her third baby sleeps so much that it made her worried. Finally when he was two weeks old, she called the pediatrician to say that he never cries, he only sleeps, and she has to undress him to get him to wake up enough to nurse for 20 minutes, and then he sleeps for another 4-5 hours.</p>
<p>The pediatrician listened to this story of the silent newborn and said, “God is smiling on you.”</p>
<p>My sister felt much better!</p>
<p>My son had hernia surgery at 20 months. That night he began SCREAMING inconsolably, at the top of his lungs, and trying to climb out of his crib. When we held him he tried to climb up our bodies. This after we were told no ride-on toys and no climbing for 2 weeks after the surgery. I called the pediatric surgeon, who told me, “He’s not in pain, that’s not possible. He’s just mad because you upset his schedule.” DS did NOT calm down, so I called the regular pediatrician, in tears. Bless him, he said, “Your son is probably having gas pains, normal after surgery,” and called in a Rx to the local 24 hr pharmacy. 15 minutes after taking the gas pain meds, DS was sleeping like a lamb. That surgeon was SO arrogant, telling me I didn’t know when my child was in pain - why do people like that chose to work with kids? Luckily the pediatrician was in-tune with kids and parents. </p>
<p>And Swat, you complained about the hip guy who was turned away despite telling the dr’s office how severe his pain was? Well my uncle had open-heart surgery. Came home, was recovering when the pain got worse. He and his wife called the dr’s office several times, explained the pain was getting WORSE, not better, and was excruciating. He was basically told to take some aspirin and get over himself. When he finally returned to the hospital for a follow-up visit, the dr took one glance at him and yelled at the nurses to get him a room. Turned out my uncle had a staph infection that was eating his ribs. Aunt could hear the dr screaming at his staff who had blown my uncle off for days. Sad ending - after surgery to clean out the infection, the wound was left open to heal. The weakened rib collapsed, punctured the heart, and the blood spurted everywhere. My uncle bled to death, and the blood was dripping from the ceiling. My aunt didn’t sue anyone, by the way, she felt the nurses made an honest mistake and suing wouldn’t bring my uncle back.</p>
<p>Medical personnel are human, and they need to remember that. Some of them are WONDERFUL… but some are arrogant and insensitive and need to be straightened out.</p>
<p>^^that is one of the most horrific medical stories I’ve ever heard. I’m so sorry for your uncle and aunt, and your family.</p>
<p>Me, too. How sad.</p>
<p>It happened about 10 years ago. I just hope that dr’s office staff now knows that when people call to say that IT HURTS, not to just blow them off.</p>
<p>Not to hijack the thread, which I know wasn’t started to discuss malpractice cases! It was started to discuss insensitive things that drs say, probably unintentionally.</p>
<p>Similar vein, one of my friends was diagnosed with breast cancer. About 2 hours later, when she was home, the American Cancer Society called to ask her for a donation! When she burst out laughing/crying and told the caller that she was just diagnosed that day, the poor caller didn’t know what to say. (I don’t think she made a donation that day).</p>
<p>Slight hijack based on the ACS story: I got a fundraising call from a large charitable organization in our area (acronym CJP for anyone in the Boston area) shortly after I went on maternity leave. One of their functions was job training & placement. When I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m unemployed”, without missing a beat, the caller said, “Oh, is there anything we can do for you?” When I went back to work, CJP became one of my primary donation beneficiaries.</p>
<p>S was whisked off to a neonatal intensive care unit 80 miles away from the hospital where he was born. The next morning, I very nice volunteer lady came in to to my room to offer us the ‘newborn photo’ package. We just declined, but husband says we should have signed up for it, and let them try to find the baby! </p>
<p>Seems like they would check on who was in the nursery before asking parents something like that.</p>
<p>Karen, ouch. I would have burst into tears, screaming - my son was a preemie and was taken to a NICU about 20 miles from my hospital. </p>
<p>The morning he was born (after a night of trying to prevent me from having seizures due to toxemia/pre-eclampsia, the doctors decided that inducing labor was unwise and were preparing for a c-section), a nursing student came into my room and told me she would be with me that day. About 10 minutes later she came back and said, “I’m sorry, I won’t be with you after all. We haven’t learned about you yet.” I thought, “Jeez, how bad off am I?”</p>
<p>After my hysterectomy I spent several days on the maternity floor, since that’s where my gyn’s other patients were. Shortly after returning home I began receiving all sorts of mailings from the hospital and other vendors offering me services for my “newborn.” Good thing I had that surgery after my family was complete. I hate to think how much that mail would have hurt if I had been on the maternity floor after a miscarriage or stillbirth.</p>
<p>When I had my first child, who was healthy and large, weighing 8 lbs. 4 oz., my roommate was a woman around my age who had just had her first child prematurely. He was very very small and had many major medical problems - I don’t think he was expected to live, although I don’t know what did happen. Naturally, I had many calls and visitsfrom happy and excited relatives, since my son was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. I felt really sorry for my roommate for having to listen to all of that and felt that it would have been more compassionate to put her in a private room or in a room with another mother in a similar situation.</p>
<p>Several years ago, a close friend gave birth in a military hospital, and went in, knowing she was giving up the baby for adoption. Having heard lots of horror stories about military hospitals, I was amazed and impressed at their handling of the situation…she was placed in a room in a different part of the hospital (not the maternity) award, and practically got personalized attention.</p>
<p>My first pregnancy was ectopic. I was having classic symptoms, and having done a little reading, I suggested to my doctor that it was a tubal pregnancy. No, he assured me with a condescending smile, if it were ectopic, he would have been able to “feel it.” (HOGWASH) But I didn’t know any better at the time, and that was that.</p>
<p>Not too long afterward, my fallopian tube burst, and I was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. My incision went from hip bone to hip bone, and I was placed on the ob/gyn floor until I could go home because my surgeon (the guy discussed above) was an ob/gyn. The nursery was just down the hall a bit.</p>
<p>I was in considerable pain and asked the nurse to help me get positioned so that I might be able to sleep. Her response: “Even our C-section moms don’t have this much trouble.” (It was obvious that she meant: even our c-section moms don’t need this much help.)</p>
<p>I eventually had a c-section. I was thrilled to finally have a baby. I’ll tell you this: a normal c-section incision is half the size of the incision I had for that emergency surgery. Plus, the c-section mom has something to celebrate.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo, I so feel for your hospital roommate. When my son had been transported to the NICU, I was placed in a room by myself at the end of the hall, away from the other moms and the nursery. Of course, I was lucky the hospital wasn’t crowded that week.</p>