Calling Time

For all intents and purposes, I fired my consultant last week. Okay, I didn’t actually “fire” him, but I asked to be referred to someone else. Without going into details, we disagreed about the right course of treatment, and because I wasn’t willing to go with what he wanted, he resorted to trying to bully me, then intimidate me and then frighten me into something that I know is not right for me.  Then, he told the nurse and the dietitian to have me in and got them to try to bully me into it. At least the nurse acknowledged that the fact that it was beginning to look like they were ganging up on me. Then he wrote an intimating letter to my GP trying to get him to bully me into it too. If there was ever an example of how not to get your patient to do what you want, this is it.

Fortunately, my GP completely backs me up. In fact, so do all of the other health care professionals I see. And I am really glad that I took my boyfriend with me to that appointment (the consultant completely ignored his presence) so that I had a witness.

Interestingly, there has always been a nurse lingering about when I’ve seen this consultant. As most of my previous experience with consultants was with gynaecologists, I’m quite used to this constant “chaperoning”. But my boyfriend has been to this same GI clinic with a different consultant and said that he never had a “chaperone”. I could have one because I am a female patient with a male doctor, but it does raise the question about whether or not his people skills have been called into question before. I’m curious if I will have a chaperone at the appointment with the new consultant.

I am seriously debating whether or not to make a formal complaint against him. I’ve had to make formal complaints against consultants before, and one I had to escalate to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons (not that they did anything, but it is on his record), so I’m not shy of doing that again. But part of me wants to see how the appointment with the new consultant goes at the end of the month first, because if I get the same treatment again, the complaint will have to go in against the entire department.

The other part of me feels that I’ve already wasted enough emotional energy worrying about how this bastard consultant was going to treat me every time I walked in there, so why waste more at this stage. I had almost managed to keep the Prednisolone-induced anxiety in check last week until I had to see the research nurse last Friday, and managed work myself up so much about stepping into the clinic all together that I pretty much undid a whole week’s worth of work on my mental health. Ultimately, I need to take responsibility for that, but I resent it nonetheless.

This is supposed to be one of the best IBD teams in the country, but I have to say that they are proving themselves to be completely the opposite at the moment. In fact, by the time the consultant resorted to trying to frighten me, he only succeeded in making himself look completely incompetent.

Whether they like it or not, I am an adult with the capacity to make decisions about my health. Therefore, they can do nothing without my informed consent. And consent can not be considered to be “informed” if it is obtained by intimidation or coercion. Consent obtained under those conditions makes litigation solicitors giddy with excitement.