Doctor you say yes, I say no

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PNNscholar1
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Doctor you say yes, I say no

By Tony Robles

 

It is sad to feel insignificant. To not be wanted, especially when you are awaiting a service—such as that of healthcare—is akin to arriving at an airport after a long flight and disboarding to find that there is no one to meet you. It's a feeling of isolation. That's not to say that everyone has someone to meet them upon arrival or that they even have the privilege of flying to begin with. But to arrive at the airport and not have someone greet you when you expect it leaves one a bit empty, even if your ride was stuck in traffic through no fault of their own. It is, in a word, anticlimactic.

 

Such is the feeling I had when I lost my job and slipped into MediCal. I was never a fan of the doctor's office. The glare emanating from the walls and floors seemed to hum a piped-in, subliminal message of inferiority--namely mine—and that it was mandated that I be thankful for the feeling. I had lost my job under very chickenshit circumstances that I could only describe as penurious (for details, see POOR Magazine article, “The Presidio Landmark, Occupied by the 1%"). It seemed the day after I was let go, I got a letter in the mail from my former bosses in their ubiquitous offices in the philanthropy capital known as Cleveland. I thought i'd have a few days—a little wiggle room to get a teeth cleaning and maybe a new pair of glassesseverance for a year and a half of selfless and equanimous service in my duties as doorman to those richer than I—who happened to be anybody that walked through the door. Wrong. I was shown the door—scuffed eyeglasses, plaque stained teeth and all.

 

I applied for and got on MediCal. I had lost my coverage and ran out of medication at the same time. I needed a refill. I got a refill at Tom Wadell clinic. When I ran out, I had received my MediCal card with the name of a doctor—let's call him Doctor Ngo (pronounced “no” for those who don't know).  I had gone to UCSF urgent care thinking I could get a refill there but was informed that they couldn't help me. “Ngo”...or, “No”, they said. I had to go to the Doctor on my card. So I made the trek to his small office in the Richmond District.

 

When I arrived I felt I had landed in a doctor's office from the 70's—the early 70's. And judging by the condition of the floors, walls, and windows, it is quite possible that the last time the office had been cleaned was in that particular decade. I looked around for a rotary telephone when my eyes landed on the face of an irritated looking woman in the reception area behind a desk.  She looked like a perpetually pissed off aunt--always pissed off at you for reasons you nor anybody else will ever know. In back of her were medical files that sagged against the wall, large stacks of paper that looked like they'd collapse with a sneeze or if a fly touched down on them.

 

I took about 15 minutes trying to answer her two questions: 1) Who are you? And 2) Who sent you? She didn't seem to comprehend that Medical had assigned me to her office, that Doctor Ngo was now my doctor. She asked me several times if I had a primary care doctor and I answered Ngo, I mean, “No” several times. Then she told me there was no room for me there, that the doctor had too many patients. She told me to go back to the Tom Wadell Clinic and I responded that they would only send me back to her smiling face.

 

So reluctantly, she gave me a health history chart to fill out. I sat filling it out when the door opened. In walked a man in a robe, pajamas and leather slippers that slapped the linoleum. The health questionnaire asked the standard health history questions but also asked what my sexual preference was,  if I had sex with my wife and if I enjoyed sex with my wife. As I was filling out the form, the woman was on the phone trying to pawn me off to another clinic. All I needed was a prescription refill, not a colonoscopy.  She hung up the phone and led the man in the robe to a room.  Meanwhile  I completed the form and waited.

 

15 minutes later I was approached by a kindly looking older man in white. He greeted me and I followed him into the exam room that was a little bigger than a walk-in closet. He told me to sit on the table with the wax tissue covering while he tended to something else. I looked at the implements and various scopes and stainless steel—that were stained—tools of the trade. The ear scope appeared to have dried wax at the end from ears gone by. The other implements looked like they hadn't been sterilized.

 

He returned and did the usual—blood pressure check, breathe in, breathe out, open wide, etc. He jotted things on a chart. I looked at the wall. His degree hung in the still air. The degree was for something called “Medical Ambassador”. Maybe that was another term for doctor. The degree looked like it had been xeroxed by one of those copy machines you'd find in safeway or wallgreens. He took my weight and said that at 5 foot 9 inches and 182 pounds, I was obese. He showed me a body mass index from some university (I think it was Stamford...that place of higher learning in Connecticut) to back the claim. Dr. Ngo was Vietnamese. I Didn't see myself as obese. Perhaps if I were Vietnamese, I would have. To get to his suggested weight of 160, i'd have to go on a serious diet. I'd go from obese to emaciated. He finally finished and wrote me a prescription with one refill.

 

The doctor was nice enough. He was far more pleasant than his assistant. As nice as he was, I left with the feeling i'd been pawned off to a doctor that perhaps shouldn't be practicing. The run around I got in getting this level of care, in a neighborhood—i might add—that I grew up in, left me feeling sorry for the next person who had to visit this doctor—and heaven help them if they have some kind of serious condition. I thanked the doctor and wondered if all those files stacked high at the medical reception desk had fallen as I shut the door.

 

(Graphic from biowizardry.blogspot.com)

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