Location: Indiana (I’m 19F btw)
There is an emergency room doctor in my small town hospital who my family knows as being a total jerk. Not sure what other patients think tbh. He does not listen to patients and just pitches his own idea of what’s wrong. I have had a persistent uti since mid-February, even after finishing two rounds of different antibiotics. I had three positive urine tests in a row. Unfortunately, because it’s a small hospital, they only staff one er doctor at a time. I was having pain in my left abdominal area that radiated up to my chest and caused heart palpitations, which I messaged my doctor about in the online portal. I was told to go to the emergency room, so I did. Apparently the urine sample was contaminated because there were skin cells in it, but what are the odds of three contaminated urine tests in a row? So he wanted to do a pelvic exam to check for a vaginal infection. This was on a Friday, and I had an appointment scheduled with my gynecologist the next Tuesday. I told him that, but he did not listen and insisted on the exam. I was very uncomfortable with some old man doctor looking in my hoo-hah, so I was literally crying on the exam table. After he was finished, he said “I don’t think you have an infection. I’ll order a culture on that urine test to confirm the uti.” He never ordered the culture. He also never told me what my blood test results were even though I asked like five times. I finally got him to tell me about my blood test but he just said I have low iron. Didn’t even mention the other numbers, and the low iron is a known issue for me. But he acted like it was a burden to talk to a patient. So I didn’t ask about the rest of the results. So I basically was looking at the blood test results on the online portal at home with no idea what the numbers mean. There were a lotttt of “abnormal” flags that he refused to acknowledge. The bacterial test from the pelvic exam came back very fast. Negative for infection, positive for a LOT of protective/positive bacteria. The next day, I got a notification that I had a new test result. At the time, I had not yet realized that he never ordered the culture on the urine sample. So I opened it, and it was a gonorrhea and chlamydia test. My dad was sitting right next to me so I opened it and made a big show about “oh thank goodness, I was worried” for laughs. It’s funny because I am a virgin. Which is something I did tell the doctor. But he tested me anyway.
Now if I get hit by a bus or have a heart attack or something, I’m going to go to the next city over (second biggest city in the state) 30 mins away. Just in case that cheesehead doctor is the one on staff at my local hospital.
My question is: If I were to submit a complaint against the doctor, what are the odds he would actually be reprimanded or fired? I looked up the hospital online, and I saw that most of the er reviews were negative, and one of them was from another woman with a similar experience as me- feeling ignored by Dr. Cheesehead and being made uncomfortable during a pelvic exam
Comments
I don’t see any legal issues here. You can make a complaint to the hospital if you want.