I had been spending the day with my daughter, who just insisted on riding along with me to my appointment. She likely wanted to see and hear for herself that I was (or was not, perhaps) healthy. So I conceded and she came along. Mind you, this was only the second time I had been to see this doctor. I could have been his mother, too. He was fresh out of medical school and you could tell. But that day, it was painfully obvious that he'd missed the course on bedside manner and patient communication.
He came into the room, talked to me, talked to my daughter, and went about his business. As the appointment went on, I began to notice that he spent far more time talking ABOUT me to my daughter, as if I wasn't even there. After about 20 minutes, I was exasperated. I looked him straight in the face, excused myself, and said
"I'm not dead yet, you know."
He got a startled look on his face, and chuckled, as if I was joking before walking out of the room. In the process of finding my current doctor, whom I love dearly, I went through about 5 or 6 who all did the same thing. I made it a pet project, of sorts, and took my daughter along just to prove a point: doctors tend to treat older people like children who can't understand them. We understand just fine. As a health advocate, I am advocating for better education on patient communication. We ARE the patients, after all.
Contributed by Mary Albert, a blogger for a senior lifestyle web site that provides advice for the 55+ age group as well as medical alert reviews
2 comments:
My Gran and I experienced this once, from an air hostess. She's over 80 and we organised assistance in getting her onto the plane, and when we were getting into our seats (first on board - woohoo!), the air hostess totally ignored my Gran and spoke directly to me, and even when I kept prompting my Gran to say something or looked at her for an answer, the woman still spoke only to me. It was incredibly embarrassing and very rude, but at least it taught me a lesson - no matter how old you are or how you look (my Gran is very frail and does not like flying so she looked a bit panicky and freaked out at the time), you are still entitled to be treated like a human being.
CWalkin
www.medicalalarmstoday.com
Thank you for sharing your personal experience, Cheryl. When I was at the airport last week I saw a couple in their 80s. She was comfortable in a wheel chair; he was struggling with his breath yet no one attended him. Gratefully, he sat himself in a wheel chair when the plane was delayed. On the plane I stopped to give them a kind word. I saw a medical alarm that pops up on your home page in my friend's father's house last week. Congratulations on a quality product.
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