One of the most frustrating experiences of health and mental health treatment in the U.S. is the inability to actually talk to your doctor or therapist when you call them. Or to receive a timely callback. My wife has literally tried contacting one of her doctors for weeks without response.
Now, while I understand doctors and therapists need to actually do work throughout the day and can’t always get to the phone, what about in the case of an emergency involving one of their patients?
Tara Parker-Pope over at the New York Times health blog, Well, notes an article published in last months’ Annals of Internal Medicine that chronicles one doctor’s attempt to contact another doctor about one of their patients who had to be hospitalized. A doctor can’t reach another doctor, even when it’s an emergency, because many hospitals and clinics have purposely put up multiple layers of barriers to prevent just such contact.
While the full article isn’t available online, a reading of the comments to this entry is both telling and disturbing.
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One Comment to
“Can’t Reach Your Doctor? You’re Not Alone”
hi im a universty student i dont thing im clever than other people but i usually find people stupıd i know it is not true but this couse me alone what should i do sometimes i consider im crazy please help me
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 19 Mar 2008
