PLATFORM : These Days, Going to the Doctor Is Enough to Make You Sick

I get the shakes every time I see the doctor. Even when I’m well, which is most of the time, the smell of sanitized waiting rooms is enough to make me want to turn on my heels and run.

Maybe it all began the day I joined a group health insurance plan at work and found myself one of a legion of patients, with a growing fear of becoming just another face in the crowd. Or the day my doctor sat in his office for an hour while I waited in a small adjoining room. I would never have known why I had to wait so long if I had not become impatient.

Or maybe it was the realization that I was getting on in years, that I would always be treated as an older man at risk by the faceless nurses and salaried physicians who didn’t know my name.

Or maybe it was the day I did go to the doctor’s office and a nurse told me that my pulse was irregular, assuring me that it could not be caused by a new medicine I’d recently begun to take. She ordered me about in a pleasant, officious way, certain that I had few options. I was displeased by her behavior but held my tongue.

I’d really rather not think about all that’s wrong with our medical care, of course, but then something will happen and I’ll be forced to see the doctor.

When illness strikes others, I don’t like to hear about it, although I do want to know whether they received good care. And usually, they’ll say they did, even if it was impersonal, even if they were treated like things, even if they were misdiagnosed and mistreated. There are so many things wrong with our medical care, and so little we seem to be able to do about it.