Way back in the day when I was a kid, life really was simpler. We had one family doctor, period. He was a general practitioner who excelled at diagnostics. I don't remember ever being sent for tests; he just knew, and set about treating or fixing it. He delivered my sister's babies, dealt with my father's hypochondria, stitched up my cuts, and accurately diagnosed my mother's slow brain bleed (aneurysm). He did call in a surgeon to fix that doozy.
Times have changed. My oncologist referred me back to my GP so I could get a referral to a cardiologist. Seems like everyone is an "ist" these days and not one doctor can tend to the whole person. Medicine has gotten so complicated. There was a good article on FB recently describing how doctors do not look their patients in the eye anymore...they are busy reading a computer screen and typing. That was my experience yesterday. The doctor did listen to my heart with a stethoscope, the extent of his hands-on care. The PA ran an EKG test which will have to be read by a cardiologist who will only tell the GP, and I will undoubtedly have to go back to be told the results. In the meantime, I need to be fitted with a Holter monitor. I'm in no big rush for that. All these trips to town are bad for my nerves.
The rain held off yesterday and Stove outdid himself. Tessie couldn't wait to go to her room last evening. I think she's finding Sheila's amorous attentions wearing. Sheila tried to push in with Tess, but I decided Tessie needed a break and sent Sheila to her own stall...alone.
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Ah yes, the Holter monitor. I only had to wear it for 24 hours and it was ok. Some have much longer, and my son, while trying to supplement his income, read them for another doc and got a small fee for it. My daughter in law's dad was the kind of doc you talked about from the good ol days, but the rules and regs imposed upon him along with thendiminished fees, coupled with the laws mandating Electronic Medical Records, instead of the files that had served him and his patients all those years...caused him to give up his practice within the last 5 years and now he works at a teaching hospital and deals with less red tape himself. The nose in the computer has changed the face of medicine for sure...but you know that, having worked in the field for so many years. I daresay that some of the practitioners are not fond of it. I'm curious to watch for changes in our state if those in power succeed in inviting everyone in for no-cost healthcare. I fear that any doc worth his/her salt will either go concierge, flee the state, or fold up the tent.
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