We've all ran into a rude doctor who thinks they are ALL THAT!!
Right?
It can be SOO extremely difficult to deal with a doctor when they are 100% FULL OF THEMSELVES!! Have you ever run into one of those?
You may want to get comfy in your seat and possibly grab a drink because this isn’t going to be like my normal sweet and short blog posts. This is going to be a looong book, I mean blog post.
If you are like "Nadya, I don't have TIME to read a really long blog post...(I totally know how that is!).....No worries! I have you covered! 😊👍 Below are three quick tips for how to deal with a rude doctor who doesn't properly care for your special needs child.
1.)Don't just tolerate a rude doctor. Ask to speak to a supervisor or manager. Ask someone in the hospital or doctors office how you file a complaint.
2.) Be sure and clearly communicate with the doctor who is being rude. No need to yell or get upset.
Just simply express your concerns and ask them any and all questions you have pertaining to your child.
Don't let them make you feel rushed because they are making it clear to you that they are in a hurry and don't have time for you or your child, or your questions.
YOU are the ONLY advocate your special needs child has! Don't let anyone push you around verbally or otherwise!!
3.) Don't just go home and cry or vent to your family and friends. Crying and venting may make you feel a little better afterwards, but it really won't solve anything.
**It is SOO important to actually take the time and energy to file a complaint.
If you don't, that doctor will just continue treating other families with the same rudeness that you and your child were treated with.
If you would like to read the full and complete story of what happened to my son Isaiah, have at it! The full story is below:
"Sign here, here and here" he said pointing to the paper he wanted me to sign before my son went into surgery.
"Umm...I have some questions about what exactly is going to be happening during my son's surgery. I thought I was going to get to talk with Dr. Lambert. When will Dr. Lambert be coming in?" I asked, confused as to who in the world this doctor was and why he was trying to get me to hurry up and sign this form without any kind of conversation at all ahead of time.
"I am Dr. Goop and I am the attending doctor for Dr. Lambert. I am sure I can answer any questions you have." He said in an annoyed tone of voice. Expressing frustration in his body language that I was slowing him down because he was clearly in a big hurry.
"Well it's just that the nurse that I spoke to a few days ago, who called me and told me all the prep things I needed to know and do prior to bringing my son in for his surgery said that Dr. Lambert would be coming in to talk with me prior to my son's surgery to answer any questions that I had and so I was just really wanting to talk with him." I said, trying to express what I had been told a few days earlier so that this doctor would understand why I was asking to speak with Dr. Lambert.
Dr. Lambert had done another surgery on my son about 9 months earlier and I had had several conversations with Dr. Lambert over the past 2 years, so I knew Dr. Lambert but I had NO clue who in the world this other doctor was, having never met him prior to him walking in the room and asking me to sign the form for my son's surgery.
He pointed to each thing that was listed on the form to be done on my son during his surgery and explained each thing using one or two sentences.
"This is saying that Dr. Lambert will be removing your son's tonsils.
This is saying that he will be removing your son's adenoids.
This is saying that he will be removing all four of your son's salivary glands.
This is saying that Dr. Lambert will be looking down your son's throat with a tiny video camera.
This is saying......." He said pointing to each item on the list for my son's surgery, being sure to let me know how annoyed he was to have to be explaining all of this to me one by one.
"Whoa, whoa whoa....I was never told ahead of time that he was going to be having all of this stuff done. Dr. Lambert never talked with me about some of this stuff. I definitely don't want all four of his salivary glands taken out. I thought we were only going to be taking out one or two of his salivary glands. And why would we be taking out his adenoids? This is the first I've ever heard about that. I really would like to talk to Dr. Lambert. I don't feel comfortable with having all of this done on my son. He is only 5 years old and that seems like an awful lot of work to be done on him all at once. I really do want to talk with Dr. Lambert." I said, expressing a lot of confusion and concern in my tone.
"Ok fine. I will see if he can pop in here when he's available." he said
"Ok great! Thank you!" I said.
Why in the world did no one discuss half of this stuff with me ahead of time? Why did this doctor just walk in our room and not introduce himself and immediately try and get me to sign the paperwork for my son's surgery without going over any of it with me ahead of time? Aren't doctors supposed to make sure that their patients understand what is about to happen during surgery BEFORE the surgery?
Dr. Lambert did eventually end up coming in the room and he did answer all of my questions. I expressed my concern as to why I didn't want all four of his salivary glands taken out as well as why I didn't want his adenoids taken out. Dr. Lambert agreed that he wouldn't take out his adenoids if I didn't want him to as well as agreed to only take out two of his salivary glands instead of all four.
This is a picture of Isaiah right before he went in for surgery.
On Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020 Isaiah went into surgery at 1pm. His surgery finished at 4pm.
It then took Isaiah over four hours to be able to come out of sedation, which was extremely stressful!
The nurse tried putting a cold washcloth under his armpits, she took off his blankets and his pajama top.
She tickled his feet.
She put another cold wet washcloth over Isaiah's face to try and wake him up.
He would only open his eyes for a minute or two but then immediately fall back to sleep.
Finally a little after four hours after coming out of his surgery, Isaiah started to use his right hand to swat at the nurse who was clearly annoying him at her continual efforts to wake him up.
She didn’t want to send him up to his hospital room for the night until she saw he was showing signs of being out of his sedation.
Needless to say, when we finally got up to our hospital room for the night, it was a LONG and exhausting night!
Isaiah was not breathing well on his own and when they tried to place an oxygen mask on him, he just cried and tossed and turned his head repeatedly because he clearly did not want it on his face.
His oxygen without the mask was around 88 or 89 and they usually like our oxygen to be more like 98 or 99.
So every hour throughout the night I would get up and hold the oxygen mask as close to Isaiah's face as I could, without it actually touching his face because I didn’t want to wake him up and I didn’t want him to start crying, which would only cause his throat to hurt worse.
I would hold the oxygen mask as close to his face as possible and watch the screen on his machine to see his oxygen numbers rising.
When his oxygen numbers got up to 98 or 99 then I would set the oxygen mask down on his bed as close to his face as I could, again, without it touching his face.
Then I would go crawl back into the makeshift bed they had in the room for a parent to sleep on.
As if getting up every single hour during the night to give him oxygen wasn’t enough, there was also the constant coming and going of the nurses as they checked on him, gave him medicine, adjusted his night drip for his feedings and checked his stats.
It turns out that Isaiah had not gone pee since he went into surgery at 1pm the previous day.
Now it was almost 1am the following morning and the nurse was worried about Isaiah not fully coming out of sedation and not peeing only made things more worrisome.
The nurse went and got an ultrasound machine to see if Isaiah was even producing urine.
“Great!” He said “According to the ultrasound it looks like Isaiah has 260 milliliters of urine in there, so now we know that his body is producing urine. Now we may just have to help his body remember how to release the urine. Sometimes after being sedated, the body slows down and it takes it a while to get back to normal again. I may have to stick a little tube (a catheter) up there to wake up the muscle that releases his urine. Usually once we do that, he will resume peeing naturally on his own again.”
The nurse went to gather a few other nurses to gather around Isaiah to help hold his arms and legs down while he stuck the tube up there, because he figured Isaiah would start kicking and moving his arms because of the pain.
The nurse gathered the catheter kit and got it all prepared to go, and then I pulled down Isaiah's pajama bottoms so the nurse could do what he needed to to help Isaiah be able to pee again and guess what!?
To our surprise, Isaiah had finally gone pee on his own. 😀👏👍🏻
At this point it was about 2:30am. We were all so relieved because now we didn’t have to put Isaiah through that little procedure, which would have only caused him more pain than the pain he was already in.
“Thank the Lord!!” I said extremely grateful! 🙏🏻
Then, just three and a half hours later at 6am, Dr. Goop walked in the room (the same rude doctor who had tried to get me to sign the paperwork prior to Isaiah's surgery the day before). He said that he was going to remove the little drain tubes that were sticking out of Isaiah's neck from where Dr. Lamb had stitched them in during his surgery. He also said “As soon as I finish removing the drain tubes from either side of Isaiah's neck, then I will draw up his discharge paperwork and we will get you guys out of here.”
“Ummm” I said, sounding really confused. “Isaiah still hasn’t really even woken up from his sedation.
He didn’t even go pee from 1pm yesterday when he went into surgery until just a few hours ago at 2:30am this morning.
He hasn’t had a bowel movement yet.
He hasn’t shown any signs of being awake or alert.
He has needed oxygen all night long because he isn't breathing well on his own.
I don’t feel comfortable being discharged yet. I think we need to at least stay one more night here at the hospital.” I said.
“Ok, if you want to stay another night here at the hospital, that's fine. In that case I will just wait to remove the two drain tubes in his neck until tomorrow morning.” He said.
“Oh good! Thank you! I really appreciate it. It really would make me feel more comfortable to stay here one more day.”
As he started to leave the room I said “Oh! Is Dr. Lambert going to be coming in to check on Isaiah?” and he said “No. I am his resident and he sent me to do the check ups today.”
“Oh. Ok” I said.
I was a little surprised because I thought that Dr. Lambert would be checking on Isaiah since he was the one who did his surgery. But I thought ‘Oh well. I’m sure Dr. Lambert will come in and check on Isaiah tomorrow before we are discharged’.
During the rest of that day (Wednesday), Isaiah started showing signs of being alert and he even started breathing well on his own, without needing the help of the oxygen mask.
I started feeling much better seeing Isaiah show signs of getting back to normal. He was still in a lot of pain, but the nurses kept him on pain medicine every three hours which was really helpful.
The following day, Thursday….first thing again at 6am, Dr. Goop walked into our hospital room, flipped on the light and said “Ok, I am going to remove the two drain tubes from Isaiah's neck.” So I got out of bed and went over to Isaiah's bed to watch him remove the two tubes,
After he removed both tubes from Isaiah's neck, he said “Ok, well I will go write up Isaiah's discharge paperwork and we will get you guys out of here.”
“Ok, is Dr. Lambert going to be coming to check on Isaiah?” I asked.
He stood there looking at me with this intense look in his eye like ‘You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!’
Then he said very slowly and with intense annoyance “You have asked me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. if Dr. Lambert is going to come in and check on your son for the LAST THREE DAYS!!!”
I was totally shocked and blown away by his extreme rudeness!! His tone of voice was BEYOND rude!! And the fact that he took the time to slow down and pause in between each word when he said “EVERY. SINGLE. DAY”. It was such a shock! I have never been spoken to so rudely by any doctor before….EVER!!
Don’t forget that after getting very little sleep at the hospital over that past 48 hours, and with the stress of my little boy taking soo long to come out of sedation and not breathing well the whole first night and being in a lot of pain from all he endured from his surgery…...well, to say that my stress level was extremely high would be an understatement!
Plus who is at their best when they have gotten very little sleep in a 48 hour period? Certainly not me!! So I looked him dead in the eyes and said with extreme curiosity “Are You ANNOYED with ME!!!!!????”
“Well it’s just that you keep on asking me if Dr. Lambert is going to be coming in to check on your son and I keep telling you that I am his resident but you still just keep asking me if he is going to be coming to check on your son!” He said again, sounding very frustrated and annoyed with me.
After taking a deep breath I said “It has been my past experience that every time one of my children has a surgery, that the doctor who performs the surgery comes in and checks out how my child is doing at least ONE TIME after the surgery is over and especially before discharging my child! I don’t understand why you are acting like I am out of line by asking to see the surgeon who worked on my son. Not to mention the fact that Isaiah didn’t even come out of sedation at all for over four hours after his surgery ended. Or the fact that he wasn’t breathing very well on his own the first night after surgery OR the fact that he didn’t even go pee until 2:30am the morning after his surgery! Or the fact that he has extremely weak muscle tone. There are a ton of reasons for concern here!”
“I want Dr. Lambert to come see Isaiah before we go home today.” I said.
“He can’t see your son today. Dr. Lambert is unavailable today. He sent me instead.” Dr. Goop said sternly.
“What do you mean ‘Dr. Lambert isn't unavailable today’?” I asked. “Don’t you work under him? Doesn’t he have to oversee everything that you do? Isn’t he here at the hospital?” I asked.
“No. He isn’t here at the hospital today. He is unavailable. Like I said I will draw up Isaiah's discharge paperwork and get you guys out of here.” He said as he grabbed the door handle and left the room.
To say that steam was coming out of my ears from the extreme anger and frustration I felt would be putting it mildly. 😡😡😡 I angrily walked back to my pathetic little bed by the cold windows and climbed under the blankets to attempt to go back to sleep again because it was only 6:10am at this point and I was still so tired and exhausted.
I laid there trying in vain to go back to sleep for maybe 5 or 6 minutes, but I was SOOO pissed there was absolutely NO FREAKING WAY that I was going to be able to go back to sleep, so I threw the covers back and got out of that tiny miserable bed and pushed the button on Isaiah's bed to call the nurse into our room.
As I stood there next to Isaiah’s bed waiting for the nurse to come in the room, I looked down at Isaiah and noticed that the doctor had been in such a hurry to leave that he hadn’t even bothered to throw away the bloody gauze and wrap that had been pressed up next to Isaiah’s neck from where he had his two salivary glands removed.
He left part of the stitches that he had removed on the pillow right next to Isaiah's head. He also left the white cloth that had been wrapped around Isaiah's neck, which also had blood stains on it. He left that cloth right next to Isaiah still touching his head. He was in such a hurry to leave that he didn’t even have the decency to clean up his mess. Especially with Covid, wouldn’t you think being sanitary and cleaning up after a bloody mess would be a no brainer? I was shocked!!
When the nurse walked in our room, I looked up at him and said with sheer determination “I need to file a complaint!! How do I do that?”
The nurse looked at me with complete surprise and confusion and said “Oh wow! What happened?”
That poor nurse.
It had never occurred to me that he thought that I was wanting to file a complaint about him.
No way!
He had been a wonderful nurse.
So I quickly proceeded to regurgitate the whole story of how extremely rude that intern doctor had been and thus the reason why I was needing to file the complaint.
The nurse looked at me and said “Ok, but are you sure you want to file a complaint….because it is kind of a big deal. He will have to go before the board and it isn’t taken lightly.”
To which I replied “Absolutely I do!!”
So the nurse passed along the message that I wanted to file a complaint and a very nice woman came up to our room and asked me several questions and I took her through the whole long story as well. She took notes the whole time and asked me more questions for clarification after I had finished explaining my whole story to her.
I will never forget how she stopped.
Put down her pen.
Then looked me straight in the eyes with such a genuine and sincere look. With true kindness and compassion in her voice, she said very softly “I am SO, SO sorry for what you went through. That doctor was very rude and unprofessional and way out of line! And I am so sorry that you and your son had to go through that.”
Her sweet, genuine apology meant the world to me, even though she clearly had done nothing wrong.
She was just the person designated to get the facts as to what happened and type up the complaint to pass it on to the board. Yet, she went above and beyond to show such real compassion.
It was so heartwarming. 💗
She made me feel so much better.
Just being heard and cared about.
Sometimes that is all we need.
To be heard and to be cared about.
What a huge difference it would make in this world if everyone just showed a little more kindness and compassion to one another.
If we all considered our tone of voices when talking.
If we stop for a minute and consider the stress and feeling of being overwhelmed that someone might be going through.
Especially from a parent in the hospital because their child just went through hours of surgery.
The stress of not seeing your child come out of sedation can not be put into words!
Stress through the roof!!!!
Of ALL times parents need to be treated kindly and given extra compassion should be in the hospital.
Can I get an “AMEN”!??
She contacted Dr. Lambert and had him call me. I explained the whole thing to him over the phone and he was very apologetic.
He said he should have made it more clear to me that he would not be following up with Isaiah after his surgery, but he instead was relying on Dr. Goop to do the follow up.
I appreciated his apology but I explained that the real issue I had wasn’t that I didn’t know that he wouldn't be following up with Isaiah.
The real issue was how rude Dr. Goop was and that he didn’t ask any questions about how Isaiah was doing or even attempt to check Isaiah out.
He didn’t ask about how he (Isaiah) was doing or if he had been tolerating his foods ok,
if he had thrown up or gone pee or poop.
He didn’t ask if he had a fever or how his oxygen was doing.
He didn’t ask how long it took him to come out of sedation or how his pain levels were.
He didn’t ask one question.
Not one.
He also didn’t stay in the room for more than a few minutes. He simply was in such a hurry that he didn’t care to hide the fact that he could care less.
Dr. Lambert did end up coming to the hospital that same day to check out Isaiah before we went home, which I really appreciated.
I showed Dr. Lambert the bloody gauze and neck wrap and stitches that Dr. Goop had left next to Isaiah’s head because he had been in such a hurry to leave.
I pointed out how utterly unsanitary and unprofessional it was for him to leave such a bloody, filthy mess there. He agreed that Dr. Goop should have cleaned up his mess prior to leaving our room.
We ended up going home late that afternoon. After getting hardly any sleep for the nearly 72 hours we had been at the hospital, plus all the stress of Isaiah not doing well, I felt like I had been hit by a semi.
I am so grateful to have such a loving and supportive husband, who jumps right in there and helps change diapers, give feedings, give medicine, helps me take care of the boys during the night and on and on…… What a tremendous blessing!! 🤗💕
We all need some good love and support. If you find yourself in a situation where you can relate or your child has to go to the hospital, please don’t try and go through it all alone. Reach out and ask someone for help…..even if it is just a listening ear.
Life is really tough sometimes and there is no need to suffer through it all by yourself.
If you are a single mom or you just don’t have anyone to ask for help or to call when you are feeling down…..please feel free to send me a DM on Instagram @tahrinadya or email me at NadyaLifeCoach@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you and share your journey with you.
No need to go through it alone.
I am here for you and I truly care.
Please let me know in the comments below, have you ever had a rude doctor? Have you ever had a rough hospital stay? If so, how did it make you feel?
In conclusion, I really want to encourage you not to be afraid of standing up for your child.
If you experience a doctor or any health care practitioner who is being rude or pushy or makes it clear that THEY are the doctor and makes you feel out of line for asking questions, please please report them.
Don’t just go home and cry or vent to friends and family. That won’t solve the problem.
These rude and unprofessional doctors and health care practitioners will just continue treating other people with the same rudeness and unprofessionalism UNTIL we report them!
I didn’t file a report on Dr. Goop just because he was rude and unprofessional to Isaiah and I. Nor did I file it just because he was unsanitary and didn’t do any kind of thorough follow up on Isaiah.
No. All of the above were a major contribution as to why I filed the complaint but one of the biggest reasons that I filed it was because I knew that if I didn’t, then Dr. Goop would continue treating other patients and families the same way.
No one deserves to be treated like that.
If you don’t have any bedside manner or people skills, then you need to get a job where you sit behind a computer and or a job where you don’t interact with people. Period.
***For privacy, both doctors names mentioned in this blog have been changed.***
~ If you are a parent of a special needs child, I would Love to have you in my private FB group. It is a safe environment, strictly for parents with special needs kids, where you can get the encouragement and support from other parents who can relate to what you are going through. The name of my private FB group is “Special Needs Parenting SOS.” ~ 😇💕
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