Dear Doctor,
Please let me start off this letter by letting you know my admiration for you on choosing this profession. Obtaining a medical degree is no easy feat and you have come a long way from cramping studies and prepping for your exams on all those sleepless nights.
But dear GP (general practitioner), please don’t assume that I will google all my answers before I go to you. Please have patience and hear my worries, hold my hand and tell me the truth.
Please, Doctor, with your respectful profession, don’t dismiss my questions and tell me to find my answers on the internet. Please don’t scoff at my anxiety and think I’m exaggerating. If I’m worried, you need to address my concerns and not dismissed me because you have a queue outside your door.
I may have ‘just a cough’ or underlying I may have a lung infection or something even worse. Please don’t send me away with over the counter medicines and wait until my fourth appointment with you before diagnosing something serious.
Or what about the time I visit you because I couldn’t sleep due to body aches. You took one look at me and my baby, in your expert opinion, diagnosed exhaustion and send me home to rest more. In the end, I was hospitalized the next day with dengue fever.
Dear Specialists, I know you have a specialized field whether it is gastrointestinal or oncology or some long funny sounding medical word but you are my ward doctor. Even though you volunteer to take on a certain number of patients with general illnesses to fulfill your ward duties, thank you for not taking my dengue lightly.
Your serious concern and gentle care show as you pop in to visit me twice a day as early as 7am. Thank you for being my nagging mother to remind me to rest more and stop touching my iPhone. And thank you for granting my request to be released early to go home for Christmas.
Dear Dentist, I know in many people’s eyes you are no doctor but to me, you are a doctor of dental health and that’s good enough to me. Thank you for not overcharging your fees. Please do know that we couldn’t voice out if we want which kind of treatments done or if we want it at all when we are in your chair, mouth wide open with your sharp tools in it.
Please let us decide what options we want and not choose the most expensive or drastic ones for us. Maybe we prefer to suffer through root canal treatment than to have the molar pulled out. Maybe we like to have composite fillings instead of amalgam ones because of aesthetic purposes. Please let us have a choice.
Dear Obgyn, you are the one person in the world I trust the most because I place my life and the life of my unborn child in your hands. Your monthly appointments are something I look forward to.
Please allow me to take videos of our visits. The grandparents are dying to see her ultrasounds. Please listen to me as I whine about my backaches, leg cramps and don’t be quick to judge me with your eyes when I confessed to you I accidentally ate Tiramisu while pregnant.
Thank you for not rolling your eyes as my husband bombarded you with million and one questions every visit. And allowing my 30 odd family members to squeeze into your tiny consultation room altogether so they can hear the tiny heartbeats of the unborn baby.
Thank you for popping into the delivery ward every hour just to reassure me that you’re around and on standby, waiting for her to be ready to get out into the real world. Thank you for your smooth and calm voice, gently encouraging and gentle hands as you coax and guide my little one out into the strange new world.
Dear Paediatrician, I know you must be extremely patient. Otherwise, how would you have chosen to specialize in pediatric and have your patients to be the little people. Specifically, little screaming people. Thank you for listening to us – parents as we squirm over every little cough, sneeze and bump on our children’s head.
Please reassure us that this phase will pass over like all the other phases and that she’ll outgrow screaming on top of her voice / banging her head on walls for the fun of it / having night terrors/teething pain soon before we lost our minds.
Thank you for being so gentle with us when we squirm and scream as you jabbed our precious ones with vaccines. And answer our endless questions about our babies.
Doctors are absolutely noble and thank you for choosing this profession. I salute you and your professionalism. As much as I am aware that there are black sheeps out there for exploitation (which industry doesn’t?), I believe that there are good ones far more than the rotten.
Thank you, Doctor.
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I wish there were more decent doctors and dentists out there. It took me 42 years to find the best dentist and since my PCP retired, I haven’t found a good general practitioner since.
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Doctors and dentists have become too business-minded and commercialized. Many under the big corporations have targets to meet every month.
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That’s sad
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This needed to be said. All the complaints and the Thank yous, they all make sense and I relate 🙂
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Thank you and I’m glad you can relate to the article. Welcome to MiddleMe!
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❤
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Lovely post, you forgot the very hardworking nurses. I should know how hard they work to make those Drs look good 😊
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Oh yes, I need to do a post on nurses soon. Thanks for the reminder! 😊
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And Dear Doctor,
Please stop relocating to other medical center locations, after you’ve only been my doctor for a year or so, using the bad traffic as an excuse. I would’ve thought you researched that aspect before you took the job. We need physicians where we live, too.
I’ve had five specialists relocate or take a sabbatical in four years.
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Oh dear, is your location that bad that doctors relocate all the time? I know I would have hated it if I need to keep changing doctors, especially my daughter’s pediatrician.
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The traffic is bad around here but it’s probably bad in the locations where they relocated. I think it’s more distance than the traffic jams themselves.
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I do hope you find a great doctor that will never move anywhere.
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Me too!
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This post just filled my heart. It feels so honest and this is the first post to put a globally felt ‘feeling’ about being a patient into words
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Thank you! This was written after I felt frustrated with my doctor. Haha.
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Nurses are the first persons you see. And the tech people too. They keep the machines running so your Doctor can say you don’t have the plague. But nurses are sort of the ambassador to a doctors office or hospital. When you change doctors 9 out of 10 times it’s because she’s a fire-breathing dragon and not the doctor. If only we could choose nurses, receptionists etc for our doctors.
Oh, just remembered one person to write. Our dental hygienist.
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True that the first medical team we see are nurses and receptionists. Good point! But I think the nurses are usually unpaid while the doctors are..tsk tsk.. making way too much money. At least in this part of the world. So I’d say I understand a grumpy poor nurse than a grumpy wealthy doctor. Haha!
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This is a wonderful post. I have written notes to my MD’s to thank them for caring for me with honesty, patience and kindness. I shared this on my Facebook page, I hope that was okay. I just popped over to say hello and am so happy that your still blogging, your blog is not only informative and helpful to many, its extremely interesting. Hope your enjoying spring coming just around the corner….keep up the great work on here!!! Kathy
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Thank you so much, Kathy for your comment and sharing this post on your FB. Sharing is caring so please feel free to share away.
Where I lived is summer all year round so no spring for me. Sigh, no snow angles for me either.
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I live in the desert southwest near the Mexcian border and its really like summer now here, but in the real summer its really hot…LOL I love the change of seasons but really we only have hot and warm too…LOL
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Lol. So no nice leather boots for us… darn, I really like the look of Long black suede boots.
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Never been able to wear them, I am short and heavy, makes me look like a hobbit…LOL I am more a clog kinda gal…LOL
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LOL! I’m not exactly tall either, I’m 1.6m.
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but I am betting your way thinner and I know your younger, boots just look better on the young !
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Not so thin and not so young anymore eversince I gave birth to my little one. 😫😝
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Congrats on being a mum…but I am pushing past 60 LOL if I was thin and maybe another 6 inches taller I might consider boots LOL then I would have to be somewhere I could wear them…
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Wow. This is such a wonderful post. And so true to the way we all feel. Some of my longtime doctors are retiring. It’s hard to let go of those I’ve trusted for so long and find new ones.
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Thank you for your support! Maybe it’s time to write a thank you letter or even send a card to your retiring doctors.
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Very well written
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Thank you so much!
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You kept me reading , flowing
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Thank you for your encouragement. Means a lot!
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Let’s do this
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God has placed us in a world filled with many different types of people.
That you are able to acknowledge our need for others is a shared Grace. Thank you my friend
May God continue to guide our pat,
Patrick
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Thank you so much for your wisdom and blessings everyday. Godspeed.
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Reblogged this on Alessandria today.
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Thank you for sharing this out!
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I have a Nurse Practitioner, who handles my yearly exam. There are statins prescribed, but I use Red Yeast Rice, instead. A chiropractor is handling my framework, and my dentist of 17 years has nursed my long-suffering teeth back to health. Careful choices make for a happy life.
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You are so lucky to find the right ones that serve your needs for so long! Good for you.
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This is something different post! But this is masterpiece! Very useful post for whole mankind!
Thank you for sharing this!
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And thank you for such a wonderful encouragement!! You’re awesome
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You too are very sweet!
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Beautifully written! I’ll keep this post in mind 🙂 xxx
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Thank you and welcome to MiddleMe!
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Very important ☺
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Yes, indeed. Thank you and welcome to MiddleMe!
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An excellent post! Many more of us would do well to write letters to our doctors. It is called communication. It is also a non-invasive way of getting our concerns addressed.
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Thank you, Lea! And welcome to MiddleMe!
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Merci beaucoup mon amie!
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🌻
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