Monday, August 17, 2009

Asking a nurse for a physician referral

Himself has a small sebaceous cyst on his back, and he is FINALLY willing to let someone do something about it. He made an appointment with a dermatologist who a friend visited and liked. Said doc took a suspicious lesion off her torso, and I actually know their PA. The PA does a nice closure, as opposed to the GIANT 2-0 Ethilon another derm used to close a sample they took off of the top of my breast once. I went straight to work and asked a CRNFA to redo it with some 5-0. The girls do occasionally see the light of day!

Anyway, despite said doctor's website claiming otherwise, they just called and canceled his appointment, stating, "We don't do sebaceous cysts." Apparently, they are going to only do cosmetic dermatology, I guess, as they are all about Botox and resurfacing. It's a tiny thing, and we have awesome insurance, but cash is king.

He just IM'd me:

Himself: They recommended three general surgeons: Drs. X, Y and Z. Know any of them?
Me: DR. X ONLY!!!!!
Me: Holy $hit
Himself: Heh. ok.
Me: never breathe those other names around me in reference to caring for live human beings
Himself: That's why I ask you first. :)
Me: *hyperventilating*

I'm a little biased. Dr. X is one of my all time favorite surgeons. Ever. He is the rare combination of incredibly talented and NICE. You don't always get personality with general surgeons. Most of them would prefer that there be a conveyor belt that brings in the patient, lets them do the surgery, and moves them on without ever having to, you know, TALK to the patient or anyone else. Dr. X is near my husband's office. He works about 50 miles away from our home. However, if anyone in my family ever needs to r/o appendicitis or needs any other general surgery care of any kind, transfer us to one of the two facilities where he works. He's a righteous dude, and I'm fairly certain his hands were blessed by the diety of your choosing.

The other two are the sort, that when it's midnight, and I've been called in to do some case (which was rarely ever an emergent case,) and the patient would turn to me and say, "He's a good surgeon, right?" Well, this is the part where M'Lynn lies by omission. It makes me feel like dirt, but grabbing them and saying, "RUN WHILE YOU CAN" is frowned upon by my superiors. I say something like, "Oh, I've worked with him a lot." "Good old Dr. Z? He's taken out a lot of (healthy) appendices in his day!"

Dr. Z once brought in a woman with a cholecystitis. She wasn't septic. There was no rupture. She was actually, other than being in some pain, in decent shape. He decided that her gallbladder needed to come out at 10pm on a random weeknight. Add to this that she was only visiting our area, had a plane ticket to return to her home the next day, and her husband was back at the hotel with their 8 month old twins. Even his PA (who had far more experience than said surgeon, and honestly, was going to be the one actually DOING the surgery for him) that the smart thing to do was medicate her for pain, let her get on her plane the next day, and get back home, where they had help to care for the kids. But, no. The wallet biopsy was positive, so we took out a fairly cranky, but by no means emergent, gallbladder.

2 comments:

  1. I must think you're interesting if I read "sebacaous cyst" in the very first line and kept reading.

    =)

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  2. Jill...I confess. It will sometimes get gross here. You don't want to have me over for dinner.

    ReplyDelete