No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

mymedlife

A patient’s mom fired me as their physician today. And it really stung.

They told the nurse it was because I didn’t care about her daughter and thought she was making everything up.

She had been seen yesterday for the same pain in our ED where she had multiple labs drawn, ultrasound, and CT that were all negative. All my initial conversation was saying I’d have to touch base with my attending because she already had all the initial labs that I’d run and I wanted to see what needed to be repeated and what additional labs we could think of. And that if we couldn’t figure it out we’d admit her for pain control and to trend the abdominal exam.

When all the labs came back unchanged from previous we decided to consult surgery for a second opinion before I repeated a CT, that way if they had any other recs we could do it all at once. I was letting the family know this when they fired me because I “didn’t care.”

It kind of stings that they think I don’t care. I stayed late going through her chart and discussing with others, consulted a specialist, and was planning on admitting if we couldn’t figure it out in the ED.

I’m not sure how I gave off the impression that I don’t care, but I’m sure there is a post somewhere on the internet about me, the awful physician who didn’t believe her pain and did nothing for her.

populationpensive

I had a similar situation happen with me. I was indirectly fired via an official email to our patient support staff. I was unprofessional, didn’t care, and rushed the appointment, apparently.

It is very hard to handle criticism like this when you KNOW that you did your best and that everything you said was either completely misconstrued or unappreciated.

*hugs* You are not alone. And it won’t be the last time for either of us. I can guarantee you have positively impacted so many more patients.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

oh dear