My Name is Not LeeAnn JackWad

ok so we had our meeting with Dr. Death today and it did not go well. Basically what he said is this.
1. He has "no idea" what happened to my pap smear. He doesn't know if it was lost or if he never did it. He just doesn't know.

2. He says he made many phone calls "at least 3" that he can remember on our behalf to try and get the billing straightened out.

3. He doesn't know why our phone calls were not returned because "his staff is really good about returning phone calls."

4. Injury to a uretor tube while rare, can happen during hysterectomy. According to him mine was the first in his career. Oh and that other lady, that I ran into at the hospital....that was his second. He has "no idea" why they both happened in the span of 8 months. Sounds logical, right??

5. He really cares how I am doing and he is really sorry that this string of unfortunate complications happened to me. He wants to make very sure that all his patients are well cared for and happy. When I said I felt he was too busy to pay attention to his patients he stressed that he was extremely busy but that in "no way" was he too busy as to compromise their care. He was very calm and nice and using his best bedside manner while patting my knee and calling me LeeAnn.
TWICE!!

The second time I just looked at Wes, knowing his head was about to blow off and much profanity was about to ensue. I almost had to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing.

Wouldn't you think that if you had a patient that had all the trouble that I had...wouldn't you think if you had received a complaint from your hospital and had one pending with the State Medical Board....wouldn't you think that if you had an irate husband sitting there waiting to tear you limb from limb...that maybe, just maybe you might remember what their NAME is?

Yeah. You would think.

All I can hope for now is that karma will take care of the rest with perhaps a little help from my lawyer. The scary truth is that in the state of Texas apparently you are pretty much screwed when it comes to medical malpractice. The laws are very strict and there is a cap of $250,000.00. Most malpractice cases cost upwards of $300,000 to prosecute so most lawyers feel that it is not worth the time. Patient beware. I am probably not dead enough to win a case so I am not really pinning my hopes on that. In fact, I am really ok with the whole thing. I am almost ready to put the whole ridiculous thing behind me.

Oh and one more item of interest....I found this article on the internet and I found it ironic. The doctor quoted is (you guessed it) MY DOCTOR.

Read 'em and weep. I know I did.

Texas doctors seek medical board reform
OB/GYN News, Jan 15, 2005 by Mary Ellen Schneider
Physicians in Texas are working to change the way the state board of medical examiners disciplines doctors by adding more due process to the system.

"The state board really is over-stepping its bounds in terms of reviewing standard of care issues," said Clyde A. Henke, M.D., an ob.gyn. in San Angelo, Tex., who has called for reform of the state board's rules.

This has significant implications for ob.gyns. They are already under pressure to drop obstetrics due to high premiums, low managed care payments, and now aggressive sanctioning of physicians by the state board, he said.

In September 2003, the Texas legislature gave the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners new authority to regulate medical practice through the passage of Senate Bill 104. This year, the legislature will review how the agency has used those new powers during its Sunset Review Process.

S.B. 104 gave the board a 60% increase in funding in fiscal year 2003 to be used to pay expert physician consultants, more competitive salaries to retain staff, and 20 additional full-time employee positions.

One of the big changes made has been the implementation of a new investigation module, said Donald W. Patrick, M.D., executive director of the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners. This new process is used to assess the approximately 6,000 complaints that the board receives each year.

In a national ranking of serious disciplinary actions taken against physicians in 2003, Public Citizen's Health Research Group ranked Texas in the middle--23rd out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.