Losing a Good Doctor

The news came by mail. The wonderful PCP doctor I just found, after 5 years of searching, is leaving her practice. I'm losing the first PCP I've liked since leaving Minnesota some 10 years ago. I'm so sad to be losing a good doc. I'm both frustrated and scared that I have to start doctor hunting again. I HATE DOCTOR HUNTING!!!

Over the years I've learned that good doctors with good support staff are hard to come by. Far too many are dismissive, overworked, uninterested in complicated hard to control medical conditions, experiencing burn out, or just don't see any value in the patient perspective/experience. Being a patient in a broken medical office is pointless and dehumanizing. Unfortunately, these broken offices are more common than well run ones.

Worst of all, there seems to be no way, other than trial and error, to weed out the bad ones. There isn't really a good source for reliable reviews. Every recommendation I've ever gotten is for a doctor who doesn't take new patients. You can't call them up and ask whoever answers the phone if this is a good place with good doctors. Patients have surprisingly few rights when it comes to information about doctors.

The process feels like a battle. It takes so much time, so much energy, and for some reason feels adversarial between the bad attitudes, lack of attention to important details and being dismissed as crazy or unknowledgeable.

This is the last thing I need right now with everything else going on.