Lamenting The Fat Files

‘I see smoking is….’ she said.  ‘Yes, smoking is a primary cause’, I finished.  ‘Well, I was looking at your history and then one of the other nurses pointed it out.  I have seen a lot of neoostomies, urostomies and ostimies and I never knew that.’  I did not reply.   

We went to Simon yesterday for my appointment at the pre-operative medical clinic aka the PMC.  In spite of all the technology the fear of lawsuits adds significantly to the cost of care.  Here with all the information at her disposal a very talented nurse had to spend an hour building my file from scratch in hard copy.  This included getting a fax from a few floors above of 8 pages, talk about killing trees.  And let’s not forget that due to different screen views the state of the art cancer center has to use a fax to transmit patient information from one office to the other in the same building.  So I get another fat file.  Fat files on me exist now here, in the basement of the old hospital, at the north hospital, at the north medical center, at the Anderson hospital and at Dr. Steve’s office, as well as Dr. E and Dr. J’s offices.  I cannot imagine suing a doctor or nurse for care given if it failed unless they clearly were drunk, stoned or serial killers who somehow made it through all of medical school to rise to the top of their profession.  Anytime you get sick you are faced with new risks, no matter what.  Risks increase when you have to seek medical care, and even further when you are under treatment.  Finally the best way to get sick is to land in the hospital, and if you do you’re first and foremost goal is to do as your told, get better and get the hell out of Dodge before you get some infection, virus, poison or medical error laid on you. 

Today we used 3 gallons of gasoline at 2.85 per gallon.  We interacted with a sign in clerk, a receptionist, and two nurses.  We paid 4.25 to park.  We arrived at 2:40P, early, and left at 5:03P, all for a urine sample and to draw blood on my part, and for the nurse to build the file on her part.  I could have done my part in 20 minutes at any lab and faxed that in.  Perhaps we could use a little tort reform so she could dedicate her very expensive hour to patient and not paperwork needs. 

And oh by the way, thanks to kind and experience Nurse for reminding me that I was there most likely because I was a smoker.  Oh yeah, I must have forgotten that.