Doctors with Crystal Balls
by Angela Grant
It is terrible to be a patient and not be heard. Terrible to be in need, and that need ignored. Apathy seems to rhyme with this culture of domineering minds. Men of medicine who lack skills of listening miss the story, miss the diagnosis. Still clueless, they dismiss you. If only those doctors saw the hidden gem: the art and science in the words of the history and physical findings.
Now I am left to float wandering aimlessly about because listening, even purchased, is never in vogue particularly when god almighty gave doctors crystal balls. Use it, use it now, tell me why I feel so ill; can’t move my foot at will. Waited I did, patiently for this important exam… I saw the male resident who knew immediately. Oh yes, and his senile, attending in the role of supervisor came in for a ride. The resident had the latest technology crystal ball plus an attending and training from the best of them all. To my chagrin, his faulty ball, customized for clueless idiots with malicious gall, dismissed my symptoms as unreal despite the physical findings: my inability to move a foot, an important finding. When did medicine rely on crystal balls and unsupervised residents to make ‘the calls’?
Almost as if I have to learn to communicate anew, to make doctors understand the mind and the body can be one. A problem in the mind or body can cause pathology. Why did this problem occur? They did not help instead attempted to create another. My real problem: Oh… it’s not your field; pass it on for another to add-on. Incomplete diagnoses, only speculations, data based on the average. Have you not figured out that I, like most, am not the average? Why so many die from common treatable problems? Millions, ignored, whilst you doctors with crystal balls create mental hysteria.
