Hi Dr. Raj,
I just wanted to say "thank you" for the stitches. I was in Friday night/Saturday morning around 4:00 AM, although you didn't get to see me until 8:00 AM, probably a long night for you too, or maybe you were just starting.
I was the guy who asked about getting the Champex prescription (I was reminded by the gentleman dieing in the bed beside me of emphysema) that I needed to quit smoking and thought I'd kill 2 birds with one stone. And you told me, in no uncertain terms, that as my healthcare wasn't current you weren't getting paid and I should expect no more than the barest minimum.
Now it's true my healthcare isn't current, I'm bad at stuff like that, government, paperwork and bureaucracy, but the admitting clerk had told me that if I brought in certain paperwork (I did on Sunday, you have it now, you should be set and paid, rest easy) that it would be fine. I was naturally horrified of the thought of you attending me as a charity case and so offered to pay you, pulled out my debit card, I think $250.00 was the stated charge (5 stitches, $50.00 per stitch, plus administration charges), and you said I could pay the admitting clerk when I left and you mollified a bit, became slightly more personable, asked what I did for a living (I serve at the moment) and we left it at that. I should have offered you cash, I had it in my wallet, but it was a long night, I wasn't thinking properly and really I just wanted to get home.Probably to you I was just another idiot in on a weekend night after some pub punch up. Hey, I've known doctors, heard the horror stories, and probably most of the time it's true. Probably.
What if I wasn't an idiot, though? That would make me a victim of your prejudice. I know the prejudices, in the ambulance they did their questionnaire - have you smoked any weed? No. Have you had any cocaine? No. How much have you had to drink - a couple of drinks (it's late Friday night, who hasn't been drinking?) and from there they presume that I'm drunk. Now I know how quick the body - not just mine - metabolizes liquor, and a couple of drinks over 4 hours didn't make me drunk or impaired even by a long shot, but you're in an ambulance on a Friday night at 3:30 AM and there has to be something to explain how I came off so badly and so drunk it was.
Have you ever experienced prejudice, Dr. Raj? Hopefully not. It's ugly, prejudice, but we all fall prey to it one way or the other.
Then the emergency. I didn't want to go, really, but as they had decided I was drunk I wasn't going to be allowed to drive home and I needed stitches (so they told me, I couldn't see, there wasn't a mirror and I really didn't care to look) and so I took the ride downtown.
4 hours waiting. Standard, I presume from reading the reviews, I don't really frequent these places. 4 hours in a waiting room with the dire late night crowd. A lady in a wheelchair, drip bag, obviously dieing, just waiting, prolonging things. Another fight victim or instigator, a couple of guys that look like they might have mislaid gerbils, the usual suspects.
And me, and I'm looking like hell and so I'm not really looking around too much, a bit self conscious, an awful lot tired, sitting on the chair waiting. 4 hours of waiting. Nothing on TV, no magazines, I would have brought a book but, I have to tell you, this was entirely unplanned. Were it even slightly planned I probably wouldn't have ended up there.
I suspected for a while that the waiting was a bit of an observational period, to ensure I hadn't suffered a concussion or aneurysm, caught the ward clerk looking at me, checking to see that I wasn't twitching or passed out, then I did the vision tests to make sure that my cornea wasn't dislodged. The vision test was curious, my eyes have been steadily getting worse and so I was aware that I was guessing a bit on the letters, but I wondered, given the hard cases and idiots that come in at these hours if it wouldn't be better to have, instead of letters, maybe illustrations of things like knives and guns and syringes and joints and we could identify those? I mean, surely not everyone who comes there at 4:00 in the morning knows their alphabet, but everyone knows what an eight ball looks like....
And then, at around 7:00 AM you get called, and I've been watching the few people go in for their problems, the theory that I was being held to ensure there was not brain damage (no new brain damage anyways) was rather sunk as my place in line was pretty much where it should be, and after another hour of waiting on the bed you came in and introduced yourself and (after an hour of listening to the hardened smoker dieing next to me) I asked about the Champex.
Apparently they've started offering courses in med school for bedside manner. A lot of the new doctors, they spend so much time studying and reading books that they have no ability to deal with patients and they've made it a prerequisite that doctors take this course. Personally I don't think it's something you can teach, but then to learn anything you have to have an interest in it, and I suspect a lot of doctors motives for becoming doctors aren't entirely pure. Things like self esteem and prestige and money.
So you tell me that I'm to receive the barest minimum of treatment, that I haven't paid and should expect or request nothing, and horrified at the thought of you working on me for free I offered to pay you and you were a little taken aback, asked what I did for a living, I guess people who come in in the wee hours don't have jobs or money, and you told me to pay the clerk when I left. I thought you'd bring around a debit machine so I could pay on the spot, I asked if you have one (like they do in restaurants), you said they did but you never brought it around and I looked for it at the desk where the admitting clerks were and didn't see it there either. Yes, I actually stopped and tried to pay the clerk, waited ten minutes while they fumbled through paperwork, ran to talk to one another, then eventually took their recommendation and simply returned the completed paperwork, it doesn't seem that you're set up there to take payments. You should know that so that in future when you're requesting payment you can ask for cash.
Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks for the stitches. And I hope you get paid. If you read this and you didn't get paid for whatever reason (the admitting clerk assured me that the completed paperwork would ensure payment) then let me know and I'll come by with cash for you.