I try hard to be a good PCP. I apologize when I’m late, I try not to be rude and I respond to medication refill requests in a timely manner. In return, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for patients. If you do these things, you will win my heart:
- Do ask questions. I’m serious, it lets me know that you’re paying attention and you’re invested in your health. Any provider who discourages you from asking questions is a douchebag.
- Don’t spend 20 minutes making idle chatter and then bring up your very serious and important question right as I stand up to leave.
- Do tell me about embarrassing things like urinary incontinence
- Don’t bring me a urine sample in a pill bottle. Margarine containers and baggies are also out. Put the urine in a screw-top jar if you must show it to me.
- Do work on your descriptive words. Is that phlegm brown? Green? Thick? Is the pain sharp, dull, throbbing? This is helpful.
- Don’t bring a sample of phlegm in a napkin or a bit of vomit in a coffee can. This is gross, and I could probably do just as well with the descriptive words alone.
- Do show me your rash if you think you have bedbugs
- Don’t bring me a live bedbug trapped in a pill bottle. They give me the heebie jeebies!
- Do shower before your pap smear
- Don’t douche and scrub out your vagina 20 minutes before the exam. I actually need to see the discharge if it’s bothering you, and I can’t get a good sample for testing if you’ve sterilized your vagina. I know it’s embarrassing and awkward.
- Do let me do a rectal or a vaginal exam if I recommend it. Trust me, I’m not doing it for kicks.
- Don’t threaten to bring a gun to the clinic and blow your brains out if I don’t refill your Ativan. This will result in a crisis evaluation, not a med refill
- Do be polite to all of the office staff, not just me. I can hear what you’re saying at the front desk!
