Be kind to your medical professional

Wow. Running a medical office is hard. Especially when your background is in theatre and marketing. Hmmm. Who knew. Here's my request to you. Be kind to the receptionist next time you go to the doctor. They have a hard job, it might be why they're cranky.

Well, after a year of planning, we've gone and done it. We have finally opened the clinic. Chronic Fatigue & Immune Disorders Research and Treatment Center is open for business. I know, I know, the patients will be tired by the time they say our name. We call ourselves Chronic Fatigue Center for short. Catchy, huh.

Day one was interesting. I was smart enough to only schedule two patients. Thank god. That was enough to show me where all the gaping holes were located in our well laid plans. Sort of funny now that I think about it... but scary at the time. Day two went better. We were behind schedule in no time but we've since readjusted some thinking and scheduling. Now if I could only tame the paper. We're planning to move to an EMR (than an electronic medical record for you all outside the biz) but it will be a while before that's truly up and running. Until then, its me vs. paper and paper is definitely winning right now. Wow there's a lot of it. Just think of how large your chart must be if you've been seeing the same doctor for a while. These folks are really sick and have seen tons of doctors trying to get help. When I ask them to bring labs they really bring it! We ask them to fill out 25 pages of forms BEFORE their appointment. We send it out to them so they can do it at their convenience because 25 pages greeting you in the office at your first appointment would send anyone running in the opposite direction!

Looking over these forms I send to the patients has been so enlightening for me personally. Do I really know my family history? Who can remember when you started menstruating, for god's sake. Why do they always ask that? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Did I eat breakfast yesterday? It was Tuesday... Ooops. Distracted again.

Anyway, it turns out that this stuff is actually important to your health. So think about it. Ask your family while they're around to ask. Take those questions that doctors and nurses ask you seriously, because they really use your answers.

Now I do have one complaint about my office. Its not that I"m playing receptionist for a while. Or that I'm running my own personal tree killing with all this printing and copying... its that my office is absolutely FREEZING. As we speak my toes as so cold I could just break them off and toss them to the birds. And this is better. We had the maintenance person come and shut all the vents to 2/3rds closed. I can't close them all the way or it will be as stuffy as grandma's house in here. No one wants that in a doctor's office. Obviously we don't control our own temperature or I would do something about it. But I just don't understand. Yes, its Florida. yes its hot outside (although why its still this hot and humid in December is a whole different question and story). But does it have to be like a freezer inside? I'm going to call Al Gore and tell him that we could make a huge dent towards slowing global warming if he could just get south Florida in line. In every office in this building, the staff are wearing sweaters and sweatshirts. There's an ob/gyn across the hall from our office. Can you even imagine how cold it is for those women who actually have to get UNdressed? Sheesh.

But back to us. All in all, we're chugging along. Business has been slow but steady for December and I understand December is a horrible month for doctors offices. We've already started making appointments for January. This is good. We're still figuring out how to use our equipment so slow isn't bad for now. The tilt table is my favorite. I want Nancy to give me the test so I can know what its like. You start laying down flat, perfectly horizontal. Then they start to bring your toward a vertical position (hence, the tilt) and in very lay terms, they find out if there's a place where your blood pressure goes wacky. I assure you there are very real and scientific words to describe this test, I just don't know them. Here's I'll wow you with this... it measures your orthostatic response. Same thing... seeing if your blood pressure goes wacky. Anyway, in CFS patients, there's a point on the way to vertical where they could actually pass out. I wanna try! I wanna try! So when we're ready to learn, I am volunteering.

Well that's enough for now. I can't give away all our secrets in one post. Let us suffice it to say this: Week one of my new clinic is coming to a close... and what a week it was. A year and a half ago when I made this life changing decision I could never in a million years have imagined this journey. In many ways, I guess that's a good thing. Here's to week two!