The Direction of Intention

I’ve decided that I am stuck in the past. I used to call my doctor when I needed immediate doctoring, when I had the flu or, like this week, a suspicious bug bite that slowly started to take over my body. I admit to being a slow-study. It’s taken more than a few experiences to learn that when I need some medical attention from my “primary care physician” I will always – always – be met with a firewall called “the next available appointment”. Sometime in 2027.

A relevant side note: please keep in mind Master Marsh’s wise insight: “Customer service is a firewall against serving the customer.” I’ve discovered the same might be said of doctoring in these un-United States. My relationship with my primary care physician is, in fact, a firewall against primary care.

I’ve finally learned my lesson. As a first step, from this day forward, I will always go to urgent care. Or, I will join the legion of people clogging the arteries of the ER for non-emergency but very costly services. But I will never-ever call my doctor. I’ve learned at last that PCP stands for Periodic Care Physician.

In truth, I feel badly for my PCP. During my last visit for an annual physical he raced in and out with his rolling computer cart to maximize the seven minutes he was allowed to spend with me before he rolled on to his next seven minute patient encounter. He was moving so fast that he “mis-coded” my annual physical as a “welcome visit” so, apparently, in his mind, we sipped scotch and took a tour of the property. Sad. He barely had time to listen to my heart and has no time to listen to his own heart. I’m certain he went to medical school to help people but has found himself doing factory work and we-the-patients are his assembly-line-widgets.

I doubt that this was the career he imagined. It’s an unimaginable system that is designed for excessive billing and, therefore, is fantastically profitable – our healthcare system costs seven times more than any other developed nation – but has little or nothing to do with health or with care.

(Hey. Wait a minute! A spider bite was how Spiderman got started! I’ll keep you posted if I find that I am suddenly able to scale walls or swing through the city from self-generated webbing).

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHCARE

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