Valfreyja

Joined: Jun 21st, '10, 05:03 Posts: 753 Hugs: 18274 Location: Thomaston, GA
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So. We finally got in to the orthopedic. No one could find his x-rays that were taken the night of the original accident. So they took new x-rays and based it off of those. His elbow was indeed broken. However, since it had been three weeks, it had already started to heal. Thankfully, it's healing correctly, which means they don't have to break it again to set it, and no surgery!
I'm not sure how I feel about this doctor, though. He was followed in by two nurse assistants. He didn't say hello, but he immediately reached out, grabbed Chris' right hand, and began to shake it -- you know, the hand attached to the broken elbow. The first thing he said was "So, I fixed your left wrist last year." To which Chris and I looked at each other, and then he responded "Well, I did get my wrist fixed last year, but Dr. Mahoney did it." "Huh. Says right here on this paper that I did it." Well, dude, I don't know what to tell you, but you didn't. The one nurse just stands there and tends his every beck and call. The other one is essentially a scribe; just types the entire conversation of the room. Neither of them look like they could be much older than 20. Which I understand that doctors have nurses. But usually the nurse comes in before the doctor (which we did have a different, first nurse who did so), takes down information, preps your chart, etc. Once he actually started looking at the x-rays and such, and performing the actual medical examination, he was absolutely excellent. Very thorough, took time to explain things, watched Chris' face to read the different levels of discomfort before he would actually say he was feeling discomfort, etc. He was very, very good. But then at the end, he made me uneasy again. He told the scribe to prepare a Work Release note that stated "no use of right arm, full use of left arm" to which I interrupted and said, "I'm sorry, but both arms are workman's compensation cases, so Dr. Mahoney is still in charge of his left arm. Last we saw Mahoney, he had given him a 30lb weight restriction with the aid of his right, so he does not have full use of his left arm." He didn't say anything, he and his nurse just exchanged a look, he nodded, then sent us on our way. We set up his next appointment, and as we were walking to the car, he looked down at the note... and it read "No use of left arm, full use of right." So we go back inside, and I talked to THREE DIFFERENT nurses from the previous three nurses, before FINALLY getting them to understand that Dr. Williams is ONLY in charge of the right arm, and Dr. Mahoney is in charge of the left arm. All it takes in one screw up, and workman's comp. will say "Well, why do these two doctors have different opinions? Well, you saw Dr. Williams most recent, so we're going to go with that." and they'll close out his case on the left arm. And I'm simply not having that.
So all-in-all, I think as far as being a medical practitioner is concerned, he is absolutely excellent. As a person, I think he's a bit narcissistic and I'm not a fan.
/end rant
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