HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

My doctor took a phone call from his wife during my appt!

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 11/21/2010 8:45 PM (GMT 0)
Seriously!?!?!  Is it really this hard to find a good doctor?  I've been diagnosed for 8 years and I'm on my 5th doctor.  I've yet to find one that I truly like.  At my appt. on Friday, the doctor's cell phone was ringing.  He said it had been going off every 15 minutes so he answered it...in the middle of my appt!  He and his wife proceeded to discuss their daughter and her friends getting their first apartment and then they started talking about their dinner plans. 

When he got off the phone, he started talking about his family and then we went on with my appt.  I felt like I was at a friend's house, not at a doctor appt.  So weird!

Posted 11/21/2010 9:37 PM (GMT 0)
Hey, as long as he spends time with you, then it's okay. People have a life outside of work. Now if he only spends one or two minutes with you and takes time out to chat with his wife on the phone, then that would be different.
Posted 11/21/2010 9:39 PM (GMT 0)
My doctor's taken private calls on occasion, life happens....but it's never been on a cell phone.

q
Posted 11/21/2010 9:44 PM (GMT 0)
I call that unprofessional, he was stealing time for which you paid him as well as interrupting both your train of thought and his.
Doctors overbook their schedule so they make as many appointments as possible in an office day. A polite/smart doctor would have stepped out or taken the call before coming in to your appointment.

I would not fire a doctor for doing this unless I felt he was not focussed on MY file at all and gave only general information and nothing specific. Quite honestly, after this many years with UC I know what the drugs are they have to prescribe and have read quite a lot on this forum so that I'm well-educated on almost everything they could tell me. I do things well before my doctor suggests them, such as taking probiotic VSL#3.

If you're 8 years with UC you are probably the same.
You could do as I do and use your doctor for prescribing Rx and scheduling a scope when it's time. When you hear the results also request a copy of the report for your home file and then come here and people will tell you things your doctor was too busy to mention that was reported.
Cynical? No, just realistic. UC is a lifetime disease, most doctors don't feel the same sense of urgency (pun unintended) that we do to find answers. They know we aren't dying and in my opinion can't afford the time to educate every single patient.

I like my doctor as well as her very good nurse that returns my calls promptly and gets the RX ordered. My doctor would not take a phone call unless it was an emergency. It's called "manners".
Posted 11/21/2010 10:14 PM (GMT 0)
I agree with imagardner.... it's called a doctors office for a reason, and you've made an appointment for a reason. If the doctor steps into your appointment he should have the common courtesy to set his phone to silent til the appointment was over.
Posted 11/22/2010 12:29 AM (GMT 0)
Would be irritating for a doc to do that, but also equally irritating when a patient does it.
Posted 11/22/2010 3:26 AM (GMT 0)
i dont see a problem either way if he had taken the call prior to entering the room you still would have had to wait if he had stepped out you still would have had to wait, and it was his wife, even though it wasnt it could have been an emergency its not like he answered a call from a golfing buddy or something. And as for stealing time comment id be willing to bet the appointment wasnt cut short because of the phone call. And having UC theres no telling how many times my name has been called at a drs office and I was in the bathroom and they had to wait on me.
Posted 11/22/2010 3:34 AM (GMT 0)
Maybe he didn't know what she was calling about. If someone is trying to contact me every 15 minutes I think it must be something important. He could have left the room to answer the phone but that would have required even more time. Life is too short to be bothered by little things like that.

Posted 11/22/2010 4:44 AM (GMT 0)
Life happens, but still, we expect, and, I believe, are owed a certain amount of decorum during office visits to professionals. They can be very irritating if their personal lives intrude on our time! I had a situation with the dentist where he was giving me a molar crown, and had already said I could pay the charges either half/half at each of two office visits or pay in full at the conclusion. Well, toward the end of the first session--(when I was shot up with sedative, right)-- his secretary walked into the treatment room to announce a phone call from his wife. He left to take the call. Afterward he told me that I would HAVE to pay him right away-- because his wife needed money! Did you ever? Before leaving the office I wrote out a check and handed it to the secretary, who whispered: "His wife is a money-grubbing witch!" A couple yrs later I heard that the dentist divorced her. / Old Hat (30 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)
Posted 11/22/2010 2:37 PM (GMT 0)
I wouldn't go so hard on the doc.  I am a dentist and I keep my cell phone on me all day on vibrate mode/silent.  I have given explicit instructions for my family and friends to try to never call me during working hours.  They are to only call me if it's an emergency such as the school nurse calls when my kids get hurt or my wife may need to go to the hospital, etc...  If it's anything frivalous I will scold that person because the patiet's time is very valuable to them and to me.  However as we all know my wife will call for things that I don't consider 911 level.  I just don't know at the time if it's legit.  Depending on the situation at hand I may choose to ignore it and call as soon as I can or sometimes I will ask politely to the patient that I need to step out for a minute.  I have a very professional yet very informal relationships with my patients and they know me, they know I care for them and their time.  Even I am 5-10 mins late for an appt.  I will personally come into the waiting room and apologize and let them know I know they are here and I will be them very shortly.  I realize you have some valid points but it all depends on how much you like your doctor, both personally and based on his/her skills.  My patients don't mind.  They know I am there for them but things do come up time to time.

MyUC

Posted 11/22/2010 2:47 PM (GMT 0)
I'm not surprised. We live in an age where everyone has to be available 24/7. You can see rude cell phone behavior multiple times per day in your local coffeehouses, grocery stores, restaurants, movies, etc. Sure, he could have handled this better by stepping out of the room, but he didn't. I'm not sure if this warrants dumping him, but before you do ask yourself, have you used your cell phone in an inappropriate place? If so, you might cut him some slack.

Sue
Posted 11/22/2010 5:31 PM (GMT 0)
I have a story that will blow your mind:

I was interviewing a job candidate, he seemed fidgety and unfocused. He gets a cellphone call and he answers it, proceeds to engage in a conversation with the caller DURING THE INTERVIEW, right in front of me while I was waiting for him to finish...what kind of judgment is that ?

Needless to say, he did not get a second interview.
Posted 11/22/2010 8:35 PM (GMT 0)
My 4 month old had to have a kidney ultrasound this morning...and the ultrasound technician answered a phone call in the middle of it while she was screaming. I did think that was a little odd but I just let it go.
Posted 11/22/2010 9:08 PM (GMT 0)
I agree; definitely the sign of the times...but still rude beyond belief. I had a lady in front of me at the pharmacy, her phone rang and she proceeded to the next cashier, still talking and putting her hand over the phone while the cashier was asking her questions. I couldn't help but start laughing. I don't know, I think the "phone call during an interview" takes the cake. lol. I'm sorry that happened to you, I think they other thing that would bother me is listening to his personal stuff. Guess he didn't seem to mind though!

Posted 11/22/2010 9:22 PM (GMT 0)
My daughter's ped gi was reading his I phone during our appointment! I nearly leaned over and throttled him. Unfortunately his behaviour just reinforces the extremely negative impression I have developed of most medical professionals through my interactions with them. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Most have very little regard for their patients, want to write up a script and be done with it (MYUC, dentists are an exception to this rule). This is my child's life we are supposed to be discussing and the man couldn't focus for 2 minutes in a row. He is supposed to be the "best" in the city if not the country.
Posted 11/22/2010 11:28 PM (GMT 0)
My long-time doctor took calls from his family upon occasion..... but he also called me from home on more occasions than I could ever count, at 8 pm after a long day... gave me his home phone number when I was pregnant, (I didn't use it) set a time to check in with me by phone one year when I'd traveled to my in-laws and was in a bad flare (he called me twice that week to make sure I was OK). He also gave me his cell number when my son was dxed and I was totally stressed and in crisis. So.... it was a two-way street, and I think I got the better deal than his family.
With all this in my mind, the tough thing for Glamourgirl is - it was the first appointment; you don't know if he's going to turn out to be reciprocal, like my doc, or just take from your time.
Killc, - wow. I've never had an experience like that. My new GI.... schedule me at 4:45 (end of day), kicked back and chatted about research, theories, probiotics, whatever I wanted - for an hour! (The poor receptionist was steaming when I came out....) No i Phones. Argh.
Posted 11/23/2010 2:50 AM (GMT 0)
I work in retail and I don't allow staff to have their phones on the sales floor let alone answer it.
I think if he had an emergency it would be one thing but clearly that conversation was not.
I agree that it just confirms a lack of respect for a patients time which is proven over and over
by the 2 hours late every one of my appointments have been.
Posted 11/23/2010 2:04 PM (GMT 0)
Songlady, you're lucky. The only medical people I've had similarly positive experiences with are naturopaths etc who charge $150-$400/hr for their time! Having said that, my daugther's GI in Toronto was very good about giving us her time and answering questions. She's extremely busy though and I always felt she was a little annoyed by the questions and thought we were bonkers (when we asked about the side effects of sulfasalazine for example). She even wrote to my daughter's pediatrician telling her we were afraid of drugs and were clearly "overwhelmed" by our daughter having UC. No s@#t! Apparently most parents in her experience are just fine about the whole thing. Anyway, she's probably the best one I've come across.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply