Ultrasound - Round 2

The response to my email from Dr. Perlo (my Primary Care Physician) was quick and to the point - contact the Patient Advocate at University Health Services and you'll be contacted about scheduling an MRI.  So, I sent this off to the Patient Advocate: 

Dear Ms. Cannon,

I had the experience recounted below at UHS yesterday and Dr. Donald Perlo, my Primary Care Physician, suggested that you might be the person to relate it to.

From my minimal interaction, I would say that UHS has three problems related to health care management that should probably be addressed:

1) The tech that I talked to obviously did not feel comfortable taking direction from me about looking at the second spot on my chest even though I told her that this had been approved by my primary care physician in communication with me and the procedure itself is about as non-invasive as western medicine gets.

I got the impression that the issue was not that she did not believe me when I told her that Dr. Perlo has approved the extension of the procedure, but that she felt constrained by what was on the paper. This would tend to indicate to me that empowerment of either patients or frontline providers is not a concept strongly held within the University Health Services.

2) The radiologist obviously felt that she/he could change the orders of my primary care physician IN THE MIDDLE OF A PROCEDURE without consulting either him or myself - this without ever having seen me or looked at my medical records. Is this the cavalier manner that medicine is currently practiced at UHS?

3) I left the encounter knowing that someone (I still didn't know who) had determined that I needed an MRI, but I was not given any direction as to how I might get one besides being told that "Shields does this."  I knew that.  I'd seen the commercials and had actually had one rather recently, but that doesn't mean that anyone gave me direction as to what came next for me.

All in all, shoddy work and not a pleasant experience. If you would, please see that this does not happen to me or anyone else availing themselves of your services again.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Marshall T. Spriggs

Comments

[Debby]

I can't wait to hear what happens next.