I left a comment on his blog today.
Oddly enough, we do agree most of the time, I just don’t put is as angrily as he does — and I do invite the angry pharmacist to come over and take a look.
Quoted from http://www.theangrypharmacist.com/archives/2008/03/taking_responsibility_for_your.html:
Taking responsibility for yourself – The Angry Pharmacist
Patients need to start taking an active role in their own care of whatever they have.
I agree with this statement wholeheartily but the system isn’t set up for us to do that.
I don’t remember how much I’ve blogged about my mother’s diagnosis of diabetes, and while it happened in Mississippi, only about a few moments of attitude above a third world country when it comes to medicine in my opinion….
Mom goes to a major medical center (the Ole Miss medical school in Jackson, Mississippi). My first problem with her diagnosis is that it too slow. She had been fighting a cough for over a year, been diagnosed by several different doctors with infections and they didn’t share notes. In my humble opinion, when an otherwise healthy person presents with three different infections in a year, something is up.
In her case, they finally pulled out a meter and did a finger stick — oh and by the way, my contact lens doctor does that much during routine eye exams and catches a few diabetics, but the way. Many that primary care physicians missed.
So they finally do a fasting glucose and get the results back the day before Christmas. Of course, they drop that bomb on her, leave her with a script and all go out of town until the middle of January. Kid you not.
They finally sent her to a nutritionist a few months later, after my sister and I spent time teaching lower carbs — my sister delivering food, and me giving information on the phone.
And she finally has learned which foods to stay away from after my sister and I convinced her to use the test strips at meals. And yeah, they give her about 100 strips a month. Not really enough if you are trying to learn what not to eat and what to eat, but better than nothing.
And by the way, I still resent the doctor blogger who lost a malpractice suit, they say because of his blog, but frankly any pedriatric specialist should never let a patient die of diabetes, I don’t care what his speciality is. Especially since my school system’s intake center regular catches are immigrants with diabetes (both Type 1 and Type 2) before they hit the classroom.
If a contact lens specialist and a urban school district can catch diabetic patients on a regular basis, why in the @#$# can’t the average medical doctor? Or specialist.
But as you can see by the above, patients are not equipped to take care of themselves, it’s been a long slow process and I still but my head up against the medical establishment.