What Would You Do?

Today, we'll do a little role playing.  You will be me and I'll propose this actual situation.

It's Sunday.

You go to the urgent care because of dire pain in your stomach.

They end up sending you to the ER because the urgent care just doesn't have the equipment to diagnose you.

The ER does a scan and determines you have an unknown mass in your stomach.  They tell you to follow up with the specialist.

On Monday, you call the specialist, and you're surprised that they can get you in within two weeks (instead of the typical three weeks to see a specialist).  You book the appointment and mark yourself Out-of-Office for work.

The day of the appointment comes.  You arrive the requisite 15 minutes early for your appointment.  The nurse (again shockingly) calls you at your appointment time.  You get the SOAP notes done (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan- it's the nurse interview) and wait for the doctor.  After the 10 minute wait for the doctor, he comes in, glances at you briefly, stares at the computer, and says "let's get an ultrasound". 

Time with the doctor:  60 seconds.

You go down to the in-clinic ultrasound and they tell you that they can't do the 5-10 minute ultrasound because, even though it's 1:25pm, there's a 1:30pm appointment that's going to need it.  So, they tell you it's going to be an hour.

How do you feel?

The time is now 1:30 and the patient still hasn't shown up.  You're waiting, impatiently, for the vacant ultrasound.

The time is now 1:40 and the patient still hasn't shown up.  You're done sending the bitching email to your spouse, and you're still waiting for the still vacant ultrasound.

The time is now 1:45 and the patient with the 1:30 time slot arrives.  You know that it will now be a minimum of 45 minutes until they can get you in to the ultrasound.

How do you feel now?

Now, give me your honest opinion:  do you care if the tardy patient was/is pregnant?

Honestly, now.

The message that was QUITE clear was that, while my symptoms may be an indicator of something life-threatening and I was there first, I had to wait for a healthy pregnant woman to get there and have her standard ultrasound scan.

You can better believe I got my co-pay back and left, after having a word about discrimination with the supervisor on-duty.