Author Topic: Best not to assume that your doctors know what they're doing  (Read 96 times)

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Offline agate

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Best not to assume that your doctors know what they're doing
« on: October 03, 2015, 11:59:40 am »
It's all too easy to ignore the paperwork you get during any doctor visit, but mistakes are often made, and with luck you can catch them.

I just had a fairly  useless visit to the neurologist for the purpose of going over the results of the recent brain MRI.

I'd already had 4 brain MRIs (1987, 2001, 2009, 2011) but another one was ordered a couple of weeks ago, to see whether the MS was showing any MRI changes over time.

This idea made sense to me as the brain atrophy that was noted as progressing when the MRIs from 2009 and 2011 were compared was something I've been concerned about.

On September 9 I received the Patient Instructions after a visit to the neuro. When I got home and took a closer look at them, I saw this:

Quote
1) MRI brain without and with contrast evaluate for him to full changes and rule out prior stroke.

As this made no sense to me, I immediately called the neuro's office and asked. I was told that it was "just the way our system printed it out"  from dictation and not to be concerned because the MRI people would understand what it meant.

I was concerned, not just about the garbled verb "full" (???), but about "changes."  To me "changes" implies a comparison--that is, looking at at least one previous MRI to find any changes.

So I assumed that if the MRI people knew what these instructions meant, my MRI would be compared with earlier MRIs. Or at least with the 2011 MRI.

I went and had the MRI but the report came back with no comparison.

When I asked the neuro why there was no comparison, I was told that the radiologist who interpreted the MRI was just a "general radiologist" who didn't have access to the previous MRIs.

The 2 most recent MRIs were done IN THE SAME HOSPITAL, quite possibly using the same machine. At least one of them was in the same room. Those records weren't so very old. They ought to have been consulted.

When I gave EKGs--which was back in the 1950s, I'll admit--it was standard procedure to look up any previous EKGs a patient had had at that hospital and pin them to the patient's current EKG so the cardiologist could compare them when interpreting the EKG. I saw the EKG reports and noticed that the cardiologist often did just that.

Admittedly, that was over 50 years ago and times have changed, and an MRI is certainly not an EKG but the principle seems the same to me. If you care about the patient's health, you care about what's happened over time with that patient's health.

I've just spent much of a day (from 9:30 AM to about 2 PM) for an appointment that took 20 minutes or less and was interrupted when the neuro got a cellphone call "from a doctor I'm playing phone tag with"--an appointment that netted me a free sample of some Nuvigil pills I might never take and a suggestion that I come back in a year.

People with neurological disorders often have mobility aids that mean they travel by the public paratransit system. We often have long waits, coming and going, for our transportation. It's not easy for someone who is easily tired, needs to take medicine, needs to use the bathroom often, and needs to stay hydrated.

Neurology patients deserve better than this, and mine isn't the only story of this kind that I'm familiar with.

The point of this rant is that it's important to keep tabs on the information about your case that is going out to you--and to those who deal with you. You don't always get a chance to see your file or the requisitions that are handed over to labs or other medical providers, but if you do, take a very close look and try hard to correct anything that is wrong.

I tried but it didn't work. But at least I did try.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2015, 12:23:34 pm by agate »
MS Speaks--online for 17 years

SPMS, diagnosed 1980. Avonex 2001-2004. Copaxone 2007-2010. Glatopa (glatiramer acetate 40mg 3 times/week) since 12/16/20.