My boyfriend has horrible sciatic nerve pain to the point he can barely walk at times; mornings…read moreespecially are bad, and he sometimes has trouble sleeping because the pain is so bad. He hobbled into the Basin Clinic with his cane, hoping they could help, or at least give him something for the pain during the months it would take to get an appointment with a nerve specialist.
He said that one of the doctors, Angela, was nice, and that the receptionists were all nice and very helpful, but the other doctor, Robert, was condescending and immediately profiled him, lecturing him about not having a job (he's in his sixties and retired) and asking personal questions. From the start it was clear that Dr. Robert did not believe him and thought he was just a drug addict trying to get pills (which he is most certainly not. I would not date a drug addict, and I live with him and I see every day how the pain makes it difficult to even do daily tasks).
Dr. Robert gave my boyfriend a prescription a couple times, but also tried to push some psychiatric drugs, because he thought that the pain was a psychological problem, and he didn't even tell him not to mix these drugs with the Ibuprofen 800's (as this might cause drug interactions), until he'd already been taking them for awhile. Then on the fourth or fifth visit, when my boyfriend was still in horrible pain, the doctor said, "I'm seeing something deeper here. Are you depressed?"
"No," my boyfriend said, "But I'm starting to feel a bit pissed off." Then, this wannabe Freud proceeded to lecture him on how his pain was not that bad, and in the midst of a parable about how the doctor used to work with dying children (therefore implying that my boyfriend's pain was negligible by comparison) my boyfriend pointed out that you can't compare peoples' pain, and the doctor said, "Stop interrupting me!" He said he thought the pain was all in his mind, and that if he wanted more pain medication he'd have to do a drug test next visit.
Well, although he would have passed, my boyfriend decided to seek medical care elsewhere after that. Since then, other people in Naturita have confirmed that they too have had similar experiences with this doctor. I understand that pain meds need to be tightly controlled, but the condescension, profiling, not listening to his patient, and possible medical malpractice (of prescribing incompatible drugs together) were all unnecessary.