My Week 227: What’s Up, Doc?

Have you ever had a relationship with someone who was a bit of a dick, but you needed him desperately and couldn’t do without him? No, I’m not talking about Ken, who is seldom a dick. I’m talking about my family doctor.

21 years ago, I had a terrible doctor. This was during a time in Ontario when there was a doctor shortage and it was almost impossible to find a family physician, and once you had one, you NEVER let them go. But I hated her with a passion for some very specific reasons which I won’t get into here but which involved my possible demise due to her negligence, so when Ken and I moved to a small town, I started investigating the possibility of finding a new doctor. There was a clinic in town, but they were only taking on patients if you had a “local reference”, so I struck up a friendship with the woman who lived next door. She and her husband had a dog named “Patches”. He was a purebred Pomeranian. Consider for a moment the type of person who looks at a mono-coloured dog and bestows it with that particular moniker out of ALL THE F*CKING DOG NAMES IN THE WORLD. Patches barked incessantly, like ALL the damn time and shat on our mutual driveway, but I was willing to overlook all of this in exchange for her passing on the good word to one of the docs at the clinic. But first, she grilled me:

Neighbour: Do you have any pre-existing conditions?
 Me: No…
Neighbour: So you would describe your general health as very good?
Me: Uh, yes.
Neighbour: I hope you’re being honest with me. If it turns out that you’re high maintenance, my reputation as a referee is down the toilet. PATCHES!! STOP BARKING!!
Me: Ken and I are VERY fit, no worries.
Neighbour: OK. Dr. Monteith is a very good DOCTOR.

The red flag should have gone up because of the ominous way she said “DOCTOR” but I was young and naïve. The clinic agreed to take me on, and Dr. Monteith (not his real name) was finally mine, and Ken’s too. After a couple of months, I had to schedule an appointment:

Dr. Monteith: Why are you here?
 Me: I took a pregnancy test and it came back positive.
Dr. Monteith: And?
Me: Well, last time it turned out to be ectopic and I had to have surgery. In Italy.
Dr. Monteith: Oh. Here’s a requisition for an ultrasound. We’ll let you know if there’s a problem this time.

And it was then that I realized why my neighbour had emphasized “good DOCTOR”. Yes, he was a very good doctor, but he had the bedside manner of a bridge troll:

Dr. Monteith: Why are you here?
Me: I’m exhausted, I’m dizzy, and I’m out of breath all the time.
 Dr. Monteith: You’re pregnant.
Me: I know that. But I feel terrible.
Dr. Monteith: Your bloodwork is fine. You’re just pregnant.

Sure enough, I WAS fine, and made it through pregnancy and many other health scares:

Dr. Monteith: Why are you here?
 Me: I’m having chest pains.
Dr. Monteith: It’s probably stress. I can recommend some books that you can read about reducing stress.
Me: If I had time to read books, I wouldn’t be stressed. Ha Ha…
Dr. Monteith:
Me: Anyway, if you really think it’s stress, give me 3 Ativan. The next three times I have chest pains, I’ll take one. If the chest pains go away, then I’ll accept your diagnosis.
Dr. Monteith: Fine. Now pay the toll. It’s one goat for today’s appointment.

OK, that last part was a lie. And as it turned out, the Ativan didn’t help the chest pains—it just made me not give a sh*t about them. So he sent me for a stress test and gave me a heart monitor. I was fine.

But despite the fact that he’s been my doctor for over twenty years, I know very little about him. I know that he has two children because for the first ten of those years, there was a picture of two small kids on a poster titled “Doctor Daddy” that they had obviously made for him. The other thing I know is that he played tennis at some point, because once, I had to make an appointment and the receptionist said, “Oh, you’ll have to see Dr. Stellen; Dr. Monteith has to have knee surgery for an old tennis injury.” So I went to the office, and in came Dr. Stellen. He was charming, friendly, and affable, and at the end of the appointment, he actually said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” He was also twenty-five minutes late. And that’s the one redeeming thing about Dr. Monteith–he’s ALWAYS on time. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever been more than 5 minutes late for an appointment in the twenty years I’ve been seeing him. This is because he does NOT make small talk. He’s not interested in how your day is going, whether you’ve been on vacation, if you’ve changed jobs—the only thing he’s interested in is why you’re there and he gets right to the point. Strangely, however, and very uncomfortably, the only time he was ever chatty was when he was doing my yearly internal exam:

Dr. Monteith: So, how’s work?
 Me: Um, fine?
Dr. Monteith: Read any good books lately? Can you just scooch down the table a bit?
Me: OK. Um, books—not really…
Dr. Monteith: Got any vacation plans? OK, we’re done. Pheww.

I’d like to believe he was trying to put me at ease, but I doubt it, based on this conversation two years ago:

Me: Now that I don’t have the prerequisite lady parts, do I still have to have a yearly internal exam?
 Dr. Monteith: No! No, you do not!

We both smiled in relief at this positive change in our relationship. Which brings me to Thursday. I’d been having problems with allergies and started getting these weird migraines, so I called on Tuesday and made an appointment to see Dr. Monteith. I was in pretty bad shape as evidenced by the email I sent my boss to tell her I had to go home for a doctor’s appointment. About half an hour later, she appeared in my office, all concerned, and said, “Are you OK? You really had me worried. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a spelling mistake in one of your emails!” and I was like “Aw, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I just can’t see out of my left eye right now.”

So I went to his office on Thursday, and he walked in the examining room right on the stroke of 11.

Dr. Monteith: Why are you here?
 Me: I can’t breathe out of the left side of my nose, my face hurts, and I’m getting those weird ocular migraines again. (*phone rings*) Oh sorry! I’m being harassed by Turkish telemarketers!
Dr. Monteith:
Me: I’ll turn the ringer off.
Dr. Monteith: Thank you. Let’s see. Hmm. Yes, it looks like an infection. Here is a prescription for 7 days of antibiotics and 6 weeks of this special nasal spray. If it doesn’t clear up, I’ll send you to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. You should also get a humidifier. OK? Bye.

Over the years, I’ve come to accept his bedside manner and appreciate the fact that he is really good at the medicine stuff. He always knows when there’s something actually wrong and doesn’t take any chances. I just pray he never retires. He might be a bit of a dick, but I’m still alive.

 

36 thoughts on “My Week 227: What’s Up, Doc?”

  1. I actually love when my doctors make small talk, asking about my family, job and stuff.
    My GP is the best. I think we first talk and laugh for 15 min before she asks me what’s wrong.
    Now you feel much worse, don’t you? Sorry. I just really need to be treated like a human esp if we have known each other for so long. If not, it’s more than ok to get straight to the point. Why waste time?!

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  2. I don’t know how you do it, I mean other than he’s kept you alive all this time. But thank heavens all my doctors have a wonderful bedside manner, they ask how I’m doing and how my life’s going…..but they’re never on time, hmmmm….🤔

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  3. I know how it is! It took me years and years to find a good doctor. Mine is an older Indian gentleman, and do I mean gentleman (he is SO kind and lovely), who feeds the feral cat colony that lives in the woods next to the office building.

    As soon as I walked up the sidewalk for my first appointment and saw the cat food and water bowls outside the door, I knew he and I were going to get along just fine! 😊

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  4. Well, he sounds old school. I trust old school. He was obviously chatty when HE was uncomfortable. My primary doc, I have had for 18 years. She is always late, I know ALLL about her and I must say she is top notch, smart as a whip. So, I’ll put up with the 20-30 minute wait time. You just gotta do what works for you. Your narration is hysterical!

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  5. Personally I’d rather have a doctor who was chatty and took an interest in my life outside the appointment, but that doctor doesn’t necessarily have to be nice. Remember the show “House” where Hugh Laurie played a doctor who as an enormous dick to everyone? But then at the end of each episode he’d say, “Wait, didn’t you casually mention you’d never been vaccinated for pellagra?” and the mystery would be solved.
    Also I kind of wish you’d blown your neighbour’s reputation as a referee. I mean, when she’s out there in her striped shirt calling fouls she deserves to be taken down just for thinking Patches would eventually grow into that name. Also you should have blown her reputation as a referrer. It would have been brilliant if during your first appointment with Dr. Monteith you’d said, “Is this going to take long? I have to get back to the spa where I’m being treated for tuberculosis.”

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  8. Bedside manner doesn’t worry me since I don’t have much bed manner myself. I hate chit chat. I wish I could find a stylist with no beside manner! That would be heaven to me.

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    • I’m lucky that mine is really up to date on political and social issues. We have some excellent conversations; otherwise, it would be torture since it takes over two hours to do my 3 different colours!

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  9. Suzanne,
    He sounds like a keeper even if he’s a bit rigid in his approach. When you’re not feeling well, empathy does help. I think there’s probably some kind of correlation between bedside manner and promptness. The more personable, the more behind doctors get. Someone should do a study. I should do a study… and ask for federal money to do my research. Hmm. I wonder how much I could get? Great post! Also, I hope you’re feeling better! Mona

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  11. Oh, I get this so much! I used to have a gynecologist who was Iranian. He had a bit of a heavy accent, despite having been here for at least three decades, so he always enunciated very clearly, emphasizing most of his words in a loud, booming voice. He was quite arrogant, too, which added to the very formidable nature of this man. The only time he ever softened his demeanor in my presence was when he delivered my daughter. His voice was very soft and gentle as he announced, “It’s a little girl.”

    He also had a lazy eye.

    Imagine, if you will, pelvic exams. I always wondered, is he looking at me, or….at ME?

    I had a very hard time making eye contact with him when we spoke because, well, where do you look? I think he used that eye to his advantage, terrifying women into doing as he said because they couldn’t look at him and he assumed they were very meek and docile.

    He was, however, a very good doctor. He never lost a baby or a mother. I trusted him. And I actually felt bad because I couldn’t ever get used to that eye.

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  12. That brought back so many memories of a doctor my entire family had when I was a kid.

    His name was Doctor Smith and the name was perfect for him. He was normal. He was boring but he was brilliant.

    He would listen to your ailment, subscribe a remedy and then he would go out into the hall and whisper something in a tiny tape recorder. As a kid that tiny tape recorder fascinated me.

    We hung on to Doctor Smith the way you are hanging on to yours.

    Awesome writing. Love it!!!!!

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  15. At my annual checkup, as my doctor reviews my blood test with me, invariably the first thing he says is, “Good news: You’re not prediabetic.”

    That is objectively good news, I’ll concede, it’s just such an odd thing to lead with — or even include at all — especially since I have no family history of diabetes, and am clearly at no imminent risk of developing it myself. You know? It’s like saying, “Good news — I see no evidence you’ve had a stroke.” I mean, in terms of getting the two of us on the same page, I guess it’s an effective trust-building exercise, it just seems to me a likely candidate for the “Not Even Worth Mentioning” list.

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