Well, I went for my appointment with the pain doctor Monday morning. I was called into the office at about 1010 a.m. I should have been out of the office no more than 15 minutes later since this was just supposed to be a small discussion as to how I was doing with the latest pain medication that I’ve been trying.
Unfortunately my doctor had a Medical Student there and she asked me to speak with the med student first. I have nothing against speaking to medical students from time to time. They need to learn about different disorders and learn to speak with and treat patients if they are going to eventually become good doctors. But when I’m not feeling all that well, and I wasn’t since I only had two hours sleep and hadn’t eaten anything before the appointment, you don’t feel like going over your whole history with a stranger.
I ended up being in the doctors office until about 11:10 a.m. and we didn’t accomplish a thing! I didn’t get any new medications and I didn’t really get much of a chance to talk with my doctor about how the new medications are working – or rather don’t appear to be making much of a difference.
Why do I bother?
I see this doctor again in a month, and next time I won’t be talking to a medical student if she has one there because by then I’ll need more medication and I might want to discuss trying some of the other meds that she keeps telling me about.
Legally, you can refuse to give the student access to you. I know its nice to let students access you for experience but if youre not feeling up to it its totally ok and the doc will understand. How did you get on the second time?