Bad doctor stories

OK, people, let's hear them!

Reading Augie's blog the other day, and then having to make the appointment for my own exam got me to thinking about my horrible pap smear story.

This may be too graphic for some.

It was right before I had gotten married. I had went to the Health Department so I could get on birth control pills. The Health Dept had switched from metal speculums to plastic ones. The Dr was having difficulty inserting this speculum, and decided to heat it up, so he could reshape it a little to be smaller. Let me tell you something. If a plastic item is hot enough that you can reshape it, and is still hot when you insert it, it burns. So, yeah, stick this thing up inside me, scorch the hell out of my hoo-haa, and then get all huffy and tell me to be still and relax.

Then there's the funny to everyone but me story about getting a physical exam. Many years ago, I was either 27 or 28, I had decided I wanted to get my nursing home administrator's license. Because I only had an AA degree, I would have to go through the state's A-I-T program. They required that you have a physical exam before you could be accepted into the program. In the small town I lived in, there was only one doctor, other than the Health Department. I normally drove to the next town, 35 miles away, and went to the doctor there. However, the hometown doctor, who was in his 80's, only charged $10 to do a physical. An office visit to my normal doctor was $35, plus gas for the trip. And just so you know, I had never had a physical before, and I was still pretty trusting and naive about people's natures, authority type figures, and people in certain professions, like doctors. Igo in, and as part of the exam, I have to take off my shirt and pants. While I'm standing there in my bra and panties, the dr tells me to jump up and down 20 times. So, naturally, I do as I'm instructed. Unfortunately, the AIT program was already full by the time I got my application in. But then, before it even started, someone dropped out, and I got in. But I had to resubmit my application, and have a new physical. I go back to the same dr, and this time I only had to unbutton my shirt, and then jump up and down. Which, of course, I did. Well, sometime later (like months), I was standing at the nurses's station at the nursing home that I worked at (as bookkeeper), and one of the CNA's mentioned that she had had to go to the dr's that morning for a physical. I asked "don't you just hate having to stand there in your underclothes and then jump up and down?" She looked at me blankly, and asked "what are you talking about?" I discover that, while several people have gone to this dr for physicals, none of them ever had to do that as part of the exam. Talk about feeling stupid. But I had no idea that wasn't just a normal part of the procedure.