Bragging Rights

[Guest guest]

Bragging Rights

 

Anne C. Woodlen

 

I saw Dr. Sean Bain for, oh, six or eight months. In that

time, he twice ordered STAT blood tests and did not pick up the results;

once ordered a drug that he knew was no longer being marketed; ordered

the wrong drug, which made me so sick that I went to the Emergency Room;

threw a hissy fit when I went to the ER, and, finally, when I was going

through cold-turkey drug withdrawal, he—Dr. Sean Bain, medical school

graduate—diagnosed it as emotional. Dr. Paul Cohen—he who rejected

medical school in favor of helping people—and I had been working

aggressively on the problem on a daily basis, and we were pretty sure it

was drug withdrawal. I put that probability before Sean Bain, Dr. Sean

Bain. I told him that we thought it was drug withdrawal---I told him

hesitantly, politely, mildly—as was my wont in those days with graduates

of medical school. He ignored me and—did I mention this?—he had the

correct diagnosis placed on the table in front of him, and he rejected it

in favor of his diagnosis: emotional.

Actually, he said, “It’s either a sleep disorder, or

emotional,” so I got myself to Dr. A. Culebras, sleep disorder

specialist, with no help from Dr. Bain. Dr. Culebras did his entire

interview without looking at me. He did not raise his eyes from my

chart, lying open flat on his desk. He asked me question after

question—his idea of an interview—and required that my answers be couched

in no more than three words—not my idea of an interview. “Do you--?”

“Several times a night.” To one question, I answered in a complete,

complex sentence, as is my wont. Dr. Culebras froze, sat silently

staring at the chart, waited a full cold minute, then repeated the

question. Shamed, I gave the three-word answer. And his diagnosis,

based on making sure that he didn't hear the whole story? He said I was

suffering from an anxiety disorder. I told him I was suffering from drug

withdrawal. He told me I had to take more of the narcotic to which I was

addicted.

Dr. Nasri Nagib Ghaly, a graduate of Cairo University Medical

School, with post-graduate studies everywhere from Harvard to China, and

a psychiatrist in the area for twenty years, blew a gasket when he heard

that Dr. Culebras had diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder. “Is not

anxiety! You do not have anxiety disorder!” he yelped. But what was he

to know—he was only the specialist in the subject field, and my personal

physician for nearly a decade. Why, in heavens name, would a sleep

specialist consult with or refer to the patient’s psychiatrist? Don’t we

all know, m’dears, that every graduate of medical school, though he be so

emotionally incompetent that he cannot make eye contact with his patient,

is still the best judge of these matters emotional?

Consider Dr. Nathan Keever, also a graduate, but not of a

school of medicine. Unlike his father, grandfather and

great-grandfather, Nathan Keever could not get admitted to a school of

medicine, so he went to a school of osteopathy, supposedly providing a

more holistic view of the human being. Dr. Paul Cohen attended all my

medical appointments with Dr. Keever. Dr. Paul Cohen is a graduate of

Syracuse University’s psychology program, which, among other things—and

unlike medical, or even osteopathic, training—requires many hours of

practice in psychotherapeutic technique, not to mention an internship.

Dr. Paul Cohen, a graduate of the study of psychology, a professional

with twenty years experience, and my personal therapist for nearly a

dozen years, sat in the same room with Dr. Keever for the six or eight

months that he was my physician. Nevertheless, when Dr. Keever wrote the

letter kicking me out of his practice, he noted that I had some sort of

emotional disorder, he wasn't sure what. And he sure as hell didn't ask

the man who did know.

We come, finally, to Dr. James Greenwald, who first saw me

with a blood pressure of 220/140, and second saw me on inpatient

psychiatry. The first time Dr. Greenwald saw me, he was very nice to me

because he had not yet heard any of the other doctors opinions about me.

The second time, I knew as soon as he walked into the room that he was

under the influence of other doctors. Dr. James Greenwald, graduate of

medical school, delivered to me in a pseudo-diagnostic tone the results

of his assessment. He said, “You have a personality flaw.” No longer

one to go meekly in the face of a medical doctor making a psychiatric

diagnosis, I asked him what he thought that flaw might be: back it up,

bastard; if I’ve got an illness, demonstrate the criteria. His answer?

“I don't know.”

Dr. Paul Cohen now goes with me to every appointment with Dr.

James Greenwald. Dr. Greenwald has not sought to consult with Dr. Cohen

on my supposed “emotional” problems—or personality flaws—but Dr. James

Greenwald has kept his damn mouth shut in Dr. Cohen’s presence.

Medical doctors who receive no training in psychotherapy, and

only are taught how to prescribe drugs in their courses in psychiatry,

presume to correctly assess psychological illness without referent to the

specialists in the field. People who went to medical school, and thereby

gave up the capacity for normal affective relationships with others of

their species, presume to diagnose dysfunction in those with a normal

range of emotions. Men presume to assess emotional illness in women.

Decades ago, in The Time Before, Dr. Franklin Grant Reed and

I were personal friends. I commented one day on doctors being required

to carry the “M.D.” notation on their license plates. He explained that

it was not a requirement, but that doctors paid extra to have this

acknowledgement. In my naiveté, I spontaneously burst forth, “You mean

they're bragging?”