Bad Medicine Gone Worse

Here's a follow-up to an earlier blog post.

I have a question for any hospital. Why would you want a doctor on your staff who is notoriously rude to colleagues, underlings and patients?

The experience I had with a doctor at Stamford Hospital's wound center has only made my opinion of that hospital go down further. (I had botched surgeries by two doctors who had been head of their orthopaedics department and three other doctors failed to diagnose osteoarthritis, a disease that is hardly new or rare. I also spent an hour in the Emergency Room with a bleeding head, and there were no other patients waiting to see a doctor.) It turns out that the physician my mother saw at the wound center has quite a reputation of being nasty. You don't even have to mention his name. Everyone knows who he is. I only wish I'd known before taking my mother to see him. If anything, he has become more obnoxious with each visit (this was our third).

I've interviewed lots of top doctors and among their shared characteristics are an interest in science (of course) and a desire to help people. I can't figure out what made this guy decide to go into medicine because he totally lacks compassion. During three visits he offered absolutely no medicine to help alleviate my mother's agony -- agony, not just discomfort. She couldn't even walk.

I fired him.

But, again, I ask, why would a hospital want such a doctor on board? He's certainly not a good representative for the hospital, despite his stellar credentials. I'm amazed that any medical school even accepted him after an interview.

Several years ago I attended a focus group on area hospitals. The people in the focus group had been to at least one of the following hospitals:

• White Plains Hospital
• Greenwich Hospital
• Stamford Hospital
• Norwalk Hospital
• Bridgeport Hospital
• St. Vincent's Hospital
  
• Yale-New Haven

One of our tasks was to write on huge easel pads all the positives and negatives of each hospital. During the discussion, I learned that most of the team had not been to most of the hospitals, but just to Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk, and most of their experiences were based on visits to the emergency rooms. They loved Greenwich Hospital because they felt that the waiting time was short and that the staff was courteous. Most were OK with Norwalk Hospital, but they perceived it as less prestigious as Greenwich Hospital. Stamford Hospital had so many items in the "negative" column that I laughed and burst out saying, "They should just tear it down and start anew."

I still feel that way today, especially after my experience with this doctor. How can I possibly trust the judgment of those who make the hiring decisions?