I had to do it all over again and switch my mom’s doctor one more time. After her doctor made us wait for over an hour, I decided we needed to look for an alternative. I thought that since I needed to take an Uber to get my mom to a doctor anyway, the distance didn’t matter, and I could expand my search to find a Russian-speaking doctor. I thought that since she doesn’t follow advice anyway, it might be important for her to be able to communicate directly with the doctor. Also, I was hoping she could be administered a memory test in Russian.
We switched from one doctor to a Russian-speaking one and scheduled an appointment. My mom didn’t like the new doctor, and if you ask me, she was not wrong. It’s funny that she has been complaining about the doctors not doing the same things as Russian doctors, like not listening to her chest at each visit or not giving her a better prescription for constipation. But now, speaking to a very traditional Russian doctor, she was upset that the doctor didn’t give her a visit summary, didn’t speak directly to her, and sent her to way too many tests. As for me, I didn’t like all these things either, plus the fact that she was saying all the time that she is the only good Russian doctor left in this area, and that only Russian doctors are any good.
Since my mom has already forgotten that she didn’t like her “one before last” doctor (who, I think, was the best she ever had) and told me that she never ever complained about her, I told her that I am going to switch her back, which I did, since we were still in the open enrollment period. I still need to wait before we see that new/old one, and I am not ruling out that my mom will be complaining again, but at least in that case, I have access to the patient portal and can message the doctor!
I am slightly upset because of the time wasted, but at least I tried, and there are no “what-ifs” left.
Hettie's Reflections 