Among the many oddities of my visit today to a new OB-GYN:
1) He left in the middle of my exam to take a phone call, and then went into the room next door and chatted with another patient for 25 minutes. I, meanwhile, sat on the table, naked and cold, becoming increasingly irritated and, shall we say, dessicated.
2) He prayed with the other patient (thin walls, I could clearly hear everything they talked about.) Prayed. At the conclusion of my visit, he said, "How about we pray over this?" Uh, no.
3) They had the bathroom door locked, and no one knew where the key was. Now if I were doing pelvic exams all day long, I'd want my patients to feel free to pee beforehand. Wouldn't you?
4) The receptionist, a freaky girl whom I had worked with for about 2 weeks at my last job, had me fill out a long detailed form about my medical history, sexual practices, and a host of other sensitive information. Then when I returned it, she didn't want to come to the window (she's heavily overweight and from what I remember, heavily lazy) and so asked me to just leave it on the counter next to the sign-in sheet for her to pick up later. Uh, no.
5) The doctor did not look at me once during the whole exam. We had a great interpersonal chat in his office. Once I was naked, however, he examined me without ever actually laying eyes on my breasts or genitals or any body part he was supposed to be, well, examining. I'm not saying that he merely didn't stare more than necessary. He pointedly looked at the wall the whole time, as if he either didn't want me to remotely be able to say he'd done anything freaky, or else if he thought it was a sin to look at another person's body. Or maybe it's like how people who are blind have their other senses increased, so he actually can examine better by touch? I'm confused about the whole thing.
6) When the nurse weighed me, she didn't know how to use the scale. She put the big weight roughly halfway between 50 and 100 lbs, and balanced the scale with the little weight on 49, then pronounced my weight to be 99 lbs. I tried to explain why that was incorrect, but she insisted that you're supposed to center the weight between the grooves. Uh, no, the grooves are for the weight to settle into, genius. (I actually weighed myself at 114.)
7) When I was taken into an exam room, I was given the usual directions: ties in front, drape over my lap, etc. But they also made sure to insist that I put all my clothes in a cabinet designated specifically for that purpose. It even had a sign on it: "Clothes Cabinet/ Please place all of your belongings in this cabinet" No kidding. Like it would offend everyone involved if they saw my clothes folded up on the chair. So I open the cabinet and this landslide of feminine products pours out. There's no shelf in this narrow little cabinet, so I supposed they meant for me to balance all of my clothing on a huge tottery pile of tampons. Not an easy task. Every time I'd try to stuff the 5343516857654654 tampons back in along with my stuff, it would all fall out as I'd shut the door. Remember that I'm also naked and kneeling on the floor, desperate to get wrapped up in my paper towels before they all come in bearing swabs and speculums. (Speculi?)
There was much, much more. By the time I left I could feel my face frozen in a stare of horror, bewilderment, and confusion. It was all so surreal. I don't know what he must have thought about me. I'm sure I looked like I'd recently been kicked in the head. He asked me when my son was born, and I couldn't even remember, I was so dazed. I was still trying to process some of the weird art in his office, and why his nurses both looked like muppets, and why all of his patients seemed to be inbred.
I guess what got me the most was that his staff was completely unconcerned about privacy, and he was ostentatiously overconcerned about it. Both approaches made me really nervous. In general, the dr was ok but his staff was severely lacking. After I told Andy all the little odd stories, he insisted I get a second opinion, which just thrills my soul, but I'm going to do it anyway. I intuitively trust the advice he gave me, which is weird, but I've got to have a better doctor.
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wakeful dreamer