New Doctor

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

I just wanted to send a big thanks to everyone who encouraged me to kick my family dr. to the curb. I took your advice and asked my dermatologist for a referral. He gave me three names -- all in the same office. It turns out one of the three doctors is a good friend of our project manager at work and just started accepting new patients. This dr. also belongs to the same country club as our owner. When my owner heard the dr. was accepting new patients he stopped him on the golf course, told him he was sending me in and gave him a long lecture about taking good care of me even before I had scheduled an appt.

My first appt went really well. He was very thorough in going over my history, my family history and looking me over. He saw the scratch marks on my legs and immediately wanted to know about itching. He saw the weird little changes in my hands/wrists and asked what was going on. He reviewed my chart and told me how he would work with the gastro and what he felt like he would handle and what he would prefer the gastro handle. I didn't even have to get out my rewritten list. He just looked at my history and me and we had a conversation. I am his only PSC patient but he said he liked the challenge of treating me and that he would research more about PSC as we go along. It was a completely different experience from what I was used to. Even his nurse was friendly. When I tried to lie to her about my height (I said 5' 1" and I'm actually only 5' on a

good day after yoga) she said yeah right and joked with me. I told her you weigh me with the shoes you get the height with the shoes. I'm thinking now I should start wearing stiletto's to the dr. It was a great experience, I mean as much as going to the dr. can be great.

I just had another follow-up to review some labs and stuff. I had another good experience!! That's two in a row. At this appt too the dr. sat down and reviewed everything with me and was very thorough. He again told me his strategy for treating me what research he had done since my last visit. We had another conversation about each of our roles in my care. The only less than stellar thing that came out of the appt is that he confirmed his suspicion that I have rheumatoid arthritis and now he is sending me to a rheumatologist. I'm hoping he refers me to someone like him.....although I think I already have enough -ologists in my life.

Thanks for listening earlier and for giving me the advice I needed to get rid of the other guy!!! You made all the difference in my changing dr's and made me realize that 8 years of less than decent care doesn't require loyalty. Its amazing the peace of mind I've got from having a family dr. I feel like I can trust. You rock.

Thanks again,

Darcy