Some Medical Dissent

As time goes on and I approach blindness, I am regularly surprised at the new resources that can be brought to bear with a little imagination. I could have had my first operation a couple of years ago. Almost all people in the same position would have. And if the surgeon I ultimately chose had not been seriously deficient on several really important counts, I certainly would have had her do the right eye in February of 2007. A fuller exposition of the details may be found at

http://www.skincell.org/community/index.php/topic,21968.0.html

Now, this surgeon never actually treated the eye in any fashion. Nor did she fully examine and question the information presented to her. Nor did she ever respond to me by phone until, finally, the last working day before the operation, I cancelled it. Then she was on the phone within a quarter hour, wanting to know what was wrong.

Since that relatively useless conversation, I have tried further communications, in the hope that perhaps my expectations had been too high. But I have concluded that my perspective was justified about her, and am thankful to conclude with finality that she will not be my surgeon or provide me with any other services. In essence, I threw a lot of money down a rat hole.

Throughout this process, I have had little success in finding a good candidate to replace her. And I have come to understand that I am not likely to be able to get a surgeon whose track record can be examined, and who is more likely to be receptive to a patient actually wanting to discuss the various elements of the operation in detail. I know this because I have been fairly active for these past two years in trying to actually communicate with other physicians. One particularly interesting candidate never responded in any way to my Emails. One would think I have been “blackballed,” as a patient who actually expects to understand the details of what is going on, and even, heaven forbid, to have some input as to what sort of lens is implanted.

It appears that virtually all of these physicians simply expect patients to pay virtually no attention to anything, but simply to do whatever is ordered.. A cataract is now considered the most routine of surgeries. According to the industry, 19 out of 20 times, vision is improved. Sometimes vastly, sometimes just a bit. Sometimes there are glare and other night vision artifacts which were not expected by the patient If the physician is board certified, the patient has no right whatsoever to understand any of the details of the operation, or even to share in the decision of what characteristics the replacement lens should have. In the case of Dr. Baltz, she never discussed my particular needs from my perspective at all. In spite of the fact that I wrote her quite a few detailed questions and supplied input which was not considered at all.

Had I ignored this, I would have been guilty of patient malpractice. In the past two years, talking to a great many patients who have had cataract surgery, I have spoken to quite a few who did not feel that the outcome was as good as they had hoped.

In many of these cases of moderate to severe dissatisfaction, the fault was not entirely with the surgeon, but stemmed as well from the patient taking no interest in the details, before the operation. In many, if not in most of these operations, you have met the surgeon once. He or she has done all the mysterious and arcane things following up on measurements that his office staff or some optometrist may have made. And if Dr. Baltz is typical, the patient’s individual needs are not touched upon at all.

Now, I should say, my experience with physicians in the past two decades, other than Baltz and the optometrist who verified my own assessment that I was going to need a new lens, is nonexistent. The stroke of several years ago, pretty much took care of itself. When my blood pressure began to skyrocket more recently, I simply studied the subject and brought the pressure back down to the normal range, without beta-blockers or other mechanical aids. Had I gone to a physician, I can safely say, I would have been on the road to a lifetime of daily blood pressure meds, at a buck or two a day, above and beyond physician charges and the tab for frequent tests.

Getting back to the increasing blindness, I have gotten pretty motivated to get at least one of the eyes done, yet still, I cannot find a doctor with whom I would be comfortable. They have all the power. I have virtually none, except refusal to proceed. Not entirely out of the question, the way the profession runs. Next time perhaps I will talk about the industrial side of the business.