You're Fired

I had no idea I would have so many people irritated with me when I went into medicine.  I thought I was going to be helping people and they would be happy for the help.  Most people are happy, but there are always those select few who cause trouble.  For whatever reason it seems like this week has been one incident after another where people are mad or upset.

First off I had the typical person get mad at me because I didn't want to give her antibiotics.  Three days of cold symptoms with no exam findings suggestive of an acute bacterial infection does not qualify someone for antibiotics in my book.  Despite explaining my reasoning she was still visibly upset.  Often it is hard to rationalize with someone who is irrational.

I sent out two letters this week terminating my physician-patient relationship due to frequent no-show appointments.  I have never in my life missed an appointment without calling to cancel.  Not once.  One of these patients managed to miss three appointments in two days.  It's not that difficult to pick up the phone and call.  I can understand things happening and not being able to call once, but not 4 times.

Then the icing on the cake happened today.  I had a patient no-show an appointment yesterday (a separate patient from the two discussed above).  Apparently she called the office 90 minutes after her appointment time to reschedule and was told that her earlier appointment would be marked as a no-show.  This made her mad, though I'm not sure why.  You can't just call at any time after your appointment and reschedule.  It doesn't work that way.  You have to call before the appointment.  At any rate, I saw her the next day and she wanted to spend the entire appointment complaining about the no show.  First she said her transportation didn't work out.  Then she said she over slept (the appointment was in the middle of the afternoon and she's an adult, mind you).  At this point I interrupted and said she could have called regarding the transportation and oversleeping is not an acceptable excuse for missing an appointment.  It is unbelievable to me that someone can do something wrong and still want to turn the tables and make it seem like we're the bad people.  Then again, I've found that most adults are not very responsible people.  My 13 year old sister is more responsible than the average adult.

This has been my week and it has been a joy.  Hopefully Friday goes smoothly and I can enjoy a non-stressful weekend.