Joe G Medical

[stevek]

Joe's wrist is all screwed up. The surgeon at Woodstock did a fine job and he went home with a halo device around his wrist called a fixator I think. This thing comes with tools to adjust it if need be. Doesn't necessarily need adjusting but often does. Monitoring progress and adjusting it as necessary was up to his local orthopod. But the local guy totally dropped the ball. Didn't really look at and never x rayed it to see how things were going. Wasn't until Joe, dissatisfied with his progress, or lack of progress, did some online research and identified what was wrong, confronted the local guy and demanded an x ray. So they x rayed it and said "wow your right, you need to see a specialist" or something like that. So he is seeing hand and wrist people at Wash Hosp Center who say they can fix it but it will need to be totally redone. One of them also said, "you mean to tell me that no one except you actually looked at this closely or x-rayed it in eight weeks?" Um yeah. Operation is scheduled for Friday a week.

I am posting this because people want to know how he is doing and he keeps saying he should get on the server but doesn't. But I also think it has some lessons for the rest of us in case of injury. You really need to be an aggressive advocate of your care. Docs screw up.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading a book called "Better" by a surgeon who asks how some docs get to the upper end of the bell curve and others end up at the bottom. The answer is not so much use of the latest medical technology or even the level of training but simply paying attention to details.

[Matthew]

Karen's doctors were more attentive after she broke her arm, taking X-rays at each visit. However, they kept shooting the X-rays at too high of an exposure. I had to argue with them each time to re-shoot the X-ray so the doctor could see how the bone was healing. Ugh!

Never trust a

Doctor
Realtor
Contractor
Car Salesman
Lawyer

Matthew

[theflyingdude]

Never trust a

Doctor
Realtor
Contractor
Car Salesman
Lawyer

Matthew

You forgot one profession,

Preacher/Priest/Rabbi/Imam/Holy Man

[Paul Tjaden]

Never trust a

Doctor
Realtor
Contractor
Car Salesman
Lawyer

Matthew

You forgot one profession,

Preacher/Priest/Rabbi/Imam/Holy Man

Amen!!!!

Paul