All the talk about health and second opinions

[Van]

Last week we took our 3yr old into see a new pediatrician for her 3yr shots. The doctor did the basic stuff and then started asking questions about how she acts and what she does ect ect ect. At one point ( 10 mins into the exam ) she made the comment that she notices a delay in her speech and that she wants to schedule a session with a speech therapist. Well needless to say this put us both in shock because we thought she was fine and speaking just as good if not somewhat better than the average kid her age considering that she has at times said 7 word sentences and has used two - three word phrases not typical of her age group until she would be about 8yrs old.

With this statement came nothing at all as to what could be the causes of speech delays and as she talked with us she ordered our daughter to get down from a step stool with an overly to agressive tone that at the time I didnt notice much as I was still taking in the speech delay statement. After we left and made it home my wife started getting upset over what the doctor said so she started looking up speech delays and discovered alot more information than what we would have expected. The reasons for speech delays are many and complicated but the one that gave us the biggest scare was finding out that its also a sign of autism.

Over the last week from the time my wife found out that speech delay is a sign of autism she did alot of research and we did alot of arguing back and forth, mostly it was my trying to get it through to her that our daughter is fine while she was thinking that maybe there is something wrong and switching over to how much of an idiot the doctor was and how could she make such a determination about her after only 10 mins ( most young kids are shy around strangers for a bit of time so being typical in this regard she was very quiet except for a few mispronounced words ).

On Tuesday we took her to the scheduled apointment and sat there sweating bullets whenever the specialist would jot dot something in her book as she interacted with our daughter. At the end of the session the specialist told us she was fine and was advanced on most levels with only a few being behind on, needless to say we were heavily releaved and immediately angry for all the turmoil this had caused. Today we met with a diferent pediatrician who checked her over and pronounced her healthy and a good talker and balked at what the other doctor said.

It really does pay to get second opinions and to change doctors when you dont feel comfortable about how you or a family member are being treated, but I will also give this advice and that is to not let the situation turn you and your loved ones into arguing idiots and do your best to remain civil and stay focused on the positive.

 

[damaged]

Glad she's ok, alot of these doctors want any excuse to bleed your insurance dry.

 

[stevenl]

Aww yes the power of unregulated capitialisam..

Im glad she is ok, I bet if your daughter instead of being shy and missing words was running around talking to much and having fun theyd want to put her on aderal(sp) for ADHD.....

 

[Van]

Glad she's ok, alot of these doctors want any excuse to bleed your insurance dry.

Me and thats the feeling Im getting about that doctor.

Aww yes the power of unregulated capitialisam..

Im glad she is ok, I bet if your daughter instead of being shy and missing words was running around talking to much and having fun theyd want to put her on aderal(sp) for ADHD.....

Same as above, Im going to check into her background some more to see what and if there have been any complaints and legal action taken against her or her practice.

 

[Bob Haller]

Note: Doctors PRACTICE medicine..

 

[Bogy]

And if the doctor had not said anything and if there had indeed been something wrong, then when it was finally discovered you would have been angry that the doctor had not noticed the problem and taken care of it in a more timely manner. And many people would have sued if that had occurred. Our doctor in one community, a member of my church, a friend, and a man who had served a small rural community for decades was sued and forced to leave the practice of medicine when an infant died. The infant died from drinking contaminated well water. He had turned blue, from lack of oxygen. The doctor advised the parents to take their baby to the hospital in a community about 30 miles away, with a pediatrician on staff. The parents had other things to do first, and by the time they finally decided to go to the hospital, it was too late. The doctor was sued, and lost the case, because he did not order the baby to be taken to the hospital by ambulance, and did not stress enough to the parents the importance of acting immediately. When he was our doctor, and our son was about a year old, he had a severe allergic reaction. Doc was sure it was a reaction which would soon pass, but he advised us to take our son to that same hospital to be checked over by a pediatrician. At 10 PM we made arrangements for someone to stay with our other two children and immediately left. We were stopped by our next door neighbor, a highway patrolman, informed him of our situation, and he told me to put on my four way flashers and called ahead for me on the South Dakota emergency radio system. The police in that city met me at the city line and escorted me to the hospital. By then our son was looking much better, but we had the pediatrician give us his ok. We never determined what caused the reaction, but the trip was worth it. We could have waited to see if it went away on its own, but we decided to take our doctor's advice. Immediately. We didn't feel the need to sue him because we saw a specialist when it wasn't needed. If the other parents had followed Doc's advice their son would be alive today, but they felt the need to blame the doctor for their son's death, instead of accepting their own responsibility, and the legal system agreed with them. Go figure why some doctors are gunshy and send us off to specialists and order more tests that aren't always needed.

When we lived in the Omaha area we had a doctor we really liked, but he decided to return to the Chicago area, so the clinic switched us to another doctor. She was forever referring us to specialists. I felt it was because she had no self confidence, and didn't want to be the one to make an actual decision. After about six months we finally switched to a different doctor.

OTOH, a good physician also knows when it is appropriate to refer to a specialist. I have a daughter who is about 5 weeks away from graduating from college. She has been experiencing an almost constant pain in her head for close to three months. The only doctor who has not told her it was "just a headache" (she also has numerous headaches, and this is different) has been one of the physicians at the campus health center. This doctor has sent her to several specialists, where she was told there was nothing wrong with her, it was just a headache. She also received this "diagnosis" in an ER one Saturday night when she was in such pain she just had to try to do something. They gave her some Tylenol 3 and sent her home. Even the codeine didn't touch the pain. One of the specialists, after an MRI, who told her there was nothing wrong, did mention that the MRI report did say something about a possible mass, and that a second MRI might be warranted. The campus doctor referred her for the second MRI, and yesterday we received that report. She has a lobulated mass in her sphenoid sinus that is large enough it is eroding the bone, may be involving the right cavernous sinus, where it may be causing pressure on the opthalmic nerve. She also has a cyst in the right maxillary sinus, nearly completely filling it. Thank God for one doctor who believed her patient when she stated that what she was feeling was more than "just a headache" and kept following up with more tests and specialists. My daughter now has an appointment with an E/N/T.

 

[Van]

In this instance we both had felt she was moving along fine with her speech development, we both had done some research prior to meeting with the pediatrician for her year 3 visit as we had questions back when she was a year and half about what she should be saying and when. When it comes to diagnosis there is no simple 10 min way to do it without doing some research wich the doctor did not do.

What the doctor did not do.

She did not make more than two atempts to get her to say something and only did this when she entered the room.

She did not ask about her daily speech or her activities and how she interacted with others.

She decided that our daughter was speech delayed because she didnt say anything at first and was shy around her and when she did say some words they were typical words that a 3 yr old says that arent crystal clear.

I understand what your saying Bogy and from reading your recanting of the details I cant see how it is that the parents werent found guilty of negligence but the doctor really should have ordered an ambulance take the child to the ER due to the severity of symptoms but as the professional the doctor will almost always be found at fault.