The Siren Song of the Medical Con

I worry about sounding like Olivia Nuzzi here, but rest assured this was poorly written on a laptop while I wait out a blizzard in doors and not on my phone.

Everyone I mention below is fine now.

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Last summer, my family and my sisters family planned to meet up with my parents in Omaha for a zoo trip. We all drove over/down on Friday night and stayed in a hotel. At 4am Saturday morning, my (extremely stoic) dad called my sister because his chest felt tight, he was dizzy, and breathing was a struggle. She drove him to an ER. A heart attack.

By the time I, the asshole daughter who had her phone silenced, got to the hospital, he had been in the ER several hours. A cardiologist had been called in to confirm the damage and do an initial assessment and left for the golf course long ago. It was just a matter of waiting to be admitted to the regular hospital. My dad was in a bed that barely held is 6’3” frame, uncomfortable and very thirsty.

I am not completely sure of the “why” but my dad was not able to drink any water unless the cardiologist said it was ok. The cardiologist had left hours ago. I flagged down a nurse to try and get some information about when he could have some water, and she said she had tried getting in touch with the doctor, but she never did.

“A con artist would NEVER,” I thought to myself.

He was finally admitted to the hospital at 2pm, nearly 10 hrs after arriving, where there was a doctor on site who could give him permission to drink. The nurse asked for a urine sample and went to get him one of those hospital water bottles. “This is very dark! You need to drink all of this and make sure you keep drinking.”

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I have been an accountant in healthcare for a long time (with a stint in another industry), but my current position has me working more directly with providers trying to establish and pay for care in harder to cover areas. Without fail, the absolute most compassionate and flexible physicians I work with are pediatricians and OBGYNs. The latter is the only type of doctor I have been warned to avoid and the type I most often hear accused of providing suboptimal care out of greed or prejudice. (The former type just loves making autism).

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“Avoid that hospital. They have the highest C-section rate.”

You mean the one with the best NICU where they send all the high risk women? The one where rural women are brought in helicopters when things are really bad?"

“Don’t allow them to give you an epidural. Don’t allow any interventions, even if they seem small. They will keep escalating if you allow a small intervention.”

You mean they won’t rupture your membranes after performing a C-section?

“It was all great with the midwives, but went to shit when the Ob arrived.”

Why did the Ob arrive?

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When I was pregnant the first time, I went to a practice affiliated with the hospital that seemed best to me that was down town near where I worked. It was always very crowded and everyone seemed stressed out. Most of the doctors put on a maximum sympathy voice during the few minutes they talked to you. There was one guy whose name I have forgotten but who I think of as Dr. Asshole. Dr. Asshole was often the only one with open appointments.

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It was approaching 7am. Shift change at the hospital. I had been pushing for an eternity. The nurse paged the doctor. Again and again. Eventually she paged over the intercom. The night shift doctor came hustling back. Time of birth, 7:16. The night doctor repaired a stage 2 tear as the day doctor arrived. Dr. Day felt terrible about what happened. She summoned all her bedside manner as she talked to me.

Some guy was finishing something with the tear after the doctor left. I never learned his name or job.

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“Just let me put your coat on for you!”

“I do it myself!!!!”

“I am so fucking late for work, again” I mutter to myself.

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I work a professional job. So does my husband. As the kids get older, we have more spending money. We interact with other professionals, some that rise to positions of real power. We are lucky. Not chronically ill, not old. Out in the world. Many years ahead of us. When we speak, there is reason to listen. The only major medical event either of us has had that made us feel vulnerable is child birth.