Anonymous
Post 12/03/2025 05:40     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:My husband is a doctor and I'm a research scientist. For us it's not about bedside manner or "clicking". It's about making the right medical decisions. I've had very few bad doctors in my life, ones who actively did something wrong, or omitted doing something that should have been obvious.

What's more common are doctors who miss going in the right direction the first time around, because the patient unintentionally leads them astray with their reported set of symptoms, or because they hyperfocus on one cause and forget to do all the right checks for any other. That is very common. Are they bad doctors? Depends how far they go in the wrong direction, I suppose. But they're also human and fallible.

My husband is a very good diagnostician in his specialty but has a poor bedside manner. He wants to find what's wrong and treat it, not hold your hand and give you the tissue box.



Cool, then my response will be “Thanks for the meds, go f@&$ yourself”. I want to thank you for what you did, not hold your hand and give you the tissue box.
Anonymous
Post 12/02/2025 13:09     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Dismissive, does not keep up with standards of practice for medications
.
Anonymous
Post 12/02/2025 12:23     Subject: Re:How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
This is OP with a follow-up: I switched doctors. The surgeon I replaced the first one with was BRILLIANT and the procedure I needed went flawlessly, including my billing being correct and my chart notes being accurate. I later learned that the first practice is all kinds of underwater, and that my experience there was far from an anomaly. Glad I left when I did...

Trust your gut!
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2025 10:36     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For me it is a dismissive attitude when I am telling them pain or concerning symptom I am having. For example, a dentist couldn't find anything with his equipment so instead of referring me to an endodontist who could check with better equipment, he told me to get a mouth guard because he said I had TMJ. Turns out I had two cracked molars and lost one of them because it had cracked all the way by then. He didn't even apologize.


None of the doctors I’ve seen ever apologized.


It’s the dismissive and condescending attitude of a doc that cause me stress and worsens health conditions.


Whitecoat anxiety is a real issue, and complicates healing for a lot of people.
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2025 10:03     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For me it is a dismissive attitude when I am telling them pain or concerning symptom I am having. For example, a dentist couldn't find anything with his equipment so instead of referring me to an endodontist who could check with better equipment, he told me to get a mouth guard because he said I had TMJ. Turns out I had two cracked molars and lost one of them because it had cracked all the way by then. He didn't even apologize.


None of the doctors I’ve seen ever apologized.


I mean, there are a lot of people in all professions who don't take responsibility for their own flawed humanity and how it impacts those around them, but it's especially egregious in healthcare, because you're going to these people to help you feel better and the expectation is that you'll at least not feel worse. Plus, doctors are some of the most arrogant people on the planet. It's a bad mix.
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2025 10:03     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:For me it is a dismissive attitude when I am telling them pain or concerning symptom I am having. For example, a dentist couldn't find anything with his equipment so instead of referring me to an endodontist who could check with better equipment, he told me to get a mouth guard because he said I had TMJ. Turns out I had two cracked molars and lost one of them because it had cracked all the way by then. He didn't even apologize.


None of the doctors I’ve seen ever apologized.


It’s the dismissive and condescending attitude of a doc that cause me stress and worsens health conditions.
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2025 10:01     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I recently needed surgery and disliked the first two surgeons I met with. Everyone kept telling me I didn't need to like them and that surgeons are usually jerks. I met with a third surgeon and really liked and trusted her. It ended up mattering a lot when I unexpectedly needed to stay in the hospital for several days, and she managed things really well. I don't trust that the others would have been as good.


Funny- I'd think that a surgeon whose surgery led me to "unexpectedly" have to be hospitalized for several days afterwords, wasn't that great of a surgeon after all!


A good surgeon doesn't mean zero complications. A good surgeon means ample support for whatever complications you may encounter. You don't get perfect performance from a human. What you do get, if you're lucky, is humility and compassionate care.
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2025 09:58     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:For me it is a dismissive attitude when I am telling them pain or concerning symptom I am having. For example, a dentist couldn't find anything with his equipment so instead of referring me to an endodontist who could check with better equipment, he told me to get a mouth guard because he said I had TMJ. Turns out I had two cracked molars and lost one of them because it had cracked all the way by then. He didn't even apologize.


None of the doctors I’ve seen ever apologized.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 14:23     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
For me it is a dismissive attitude when I am telling them pain or concerning symptom I am having. For example, a dentist couldn't find anything with his equipment so instead of referring me to an endodontist who could check with better equipment, he told me to get a mouth guard because he said I had TMJ. Turns out I had two cracked molars and lost one of them because it had cracked all the way by then. He didn't even apologize.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 14:16     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I had a general practitioner give me a gynecological exam as part of my annual physicaland did not give me warning before sticking a finger in my butt. I was alarmed, but I was only about 25 and was unsure if that was normal. It did not feel right. I looked up reviews after that, and the majority were extremely positive as she was a well regarded doctor in the northern Virginia area, but digging deeper there were a handful that had experiences like mine. That really made me question what she was doing. I never went back.


That's... not normal, is it?


NP. She should have told you what she was doing but an anal exam is normal. I just realized my new gyno is not doing it and that is unfortunate because I do appreciate being checked for bleeding as a cancer screening.
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 14:08     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:I recently needed surgery and disliked the first two surgeons I met with. Everyone kept telling me I didn't need to like them and that surgeons are usually jerks. I met with a third surgeon and really liked and trusted her. It ended up mattering a lot when I unexpectedly needed to stay in the hospital for several days, and she managed things really well. I don't trust that the others would have been as good.


Funny- I'd think that a surgeon whose surgery led me to "unexpectedly" have to be hospitalized for several days afterwords, wasn't that great of a surgeon after all!
Anonymous
Post 09/08/2025 14:07     Subject: How do you know it's time to switch doctors?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Doc here- first of all, yes, if you don’t click with her and don’t trust that she does her job well then absolutely shop around. It’s your health and your life!

Second of all, when I document, there is an option for a template for almost every kind of encounter. If a kid has strep throat I click the template , add some details, delete some others, and lock the encounter. Otherwise I’d be documenting for 6 hours every evening after I left work. So yeah I’m sure a lot of those charts say I educated the family on a million types of infection control when I didn’t (although technically, legally, I did, by handing them the discharge paper that includes a million infection control suggestions). Does that make me a bad doctor? That’s up to you. I’m just trying to see patients and practice solid medicine, I’m not trying to write a novel for every standard patient encounter just so insurance companies will grudgingly agree to pay for your visit. But some people wouldn’t like that the chart is clearly sort of standardized, and that’s fine, my feelings aren’t hurt.


It's not about hurting your feelings or not. You should come up with a new shortcut if the shortcut you're using ends up putting false information into people's charts. For one thing, your causing people to lose valid disability claims with your practice. I have doctors who include a "review of systems" at the end of the encounter note but didn't actually ask me about any of those symptoms. I write them back and note that they didn't ask, and if they had, my answers would have been xyz, and I ask them to correct it.


As I said, nothing is actually false- I hand you a discharge summary that has about a page and a half of information about strep throat in kids, anticipatory guidance, reasons to seek further care, etc etc. And legally, if your doc says "okay so- sore throat, some nausea, fever of 101- no other significant symptoms today? No rashes, diarrhea, headaches, coughing, congestion with this illness?" and the patient says "no", then that's a review of symptoms. If you want your doc to do a head to toe detailed review of systems and a head to toe complete physical exam for (in my example) a visit for strep throat, then you need to find a concierge doc. With what insurance reimbursement rates are, there is a zero percent chance any doctor who takes insurance is able to do this and not go bankrupt within the year. They couldn't get through more than 12 patients a day.