I’m trying to find a new regular family doctor, as I don’t seem to have one now that the one I thought was my doctor moved offices without bothering to tell me. I take this to mean he doesn’t need me as a patient anymore. My dentist sends me newsletter updates and Christmas cards (and he’s Jewish). I recommended him to my mom. That’s all you need to know about his rating.
It’s nearly impossible to find a family doctor in Canada, as most Canadians suffering under the decrepit North Korean-style government-run Canadian “healthcare” system know. So I’m checking out a doctor ratings web site, RateMDs.com, to read about doctors in my area that have been rated by their patients. Surely this would screen out the likes of my old doctor, and find one like my dentist.
It’s fun to read the patients’ comments —one person thinks theirs is the best doctor ever, the next guy thinks he’s the worst ever.
I like this one:
He is only interested in your money! Under the system of insurance in BC he gets paid even if he is bad. He is undereducated and stupid. Don’t go to him if you value you health. He is responsible for my hearth problems. He is only after your money. Bad doctor, probably smoked too much weed in 70’s. GO TO SOMEONE THAT CARES!
I guess if I ever need some o’ that “medical marijuana” he’s my man.
I’m about to call the one rated best (which wasn’t the weed-smoker).
Result: FAILURE. Not taking new patients.
So now I must go to a doctor which isn’t rated as highly. That makes me feel wonderful. The second most highly-rated doc is known on the system only as “Dr. [last name]”. No first name that anybody seems to know. All the others have first names. And this one only has three ratings. The others have at least a dozen. So could be a little dodgy. But what the hell. It’s just my health and my life.
Result: I’ve been trying to find a phone number for him for the past 25 minutes. Still trying.
Result: Found the number. He’s no longer at that office — moved to a walk-in clinic. Hmm. A walk-in clinic isn’t really a permanent family doctor sort of deal…. putting him on the back-burner for now.
Next up: the third most-highly-ranked doctor.
Result: He’s apparently retiring. But speaking of tires, the other day I went to the local tire shop and asked them to fix my leaky tire, and they did it instantly, and didn’t charge me for it. But anyway…
Nexxxxt: The fourth most highly-ranked doctor…. he has a Chinese last name that I can’t figure out how to pronounce. Currently looking it up on the internet to see if I can get some guidance on pronouncing it properly before asking if I can please be his patient.
Result: I went to Wiki.Answers.com and asked how to pronounce it. Their report back to me: “You may have some misspellings in your question: Suggestions: Asia , USIA, Hiss”. Well no it’s none of those….
Result: Someone recommended I go to a Chinese pronunciation web site, and find the pronunciation for the word “xia”, which is as close as it 
comes to the real name, because the real name returns a “no result” result, and this is fairly close. For some odd reason, this picture accompanies the definition of the word “xia” (which is “go down”, “fall”… oh great). Click here to listen to the pronunciation. Quite fun. And wish me luck! ….
Result: Not taking new patients. While I was on the phone though, the receptionist told me they also have another doctor, a fairly new doctor whose name I recognized as one I called just before this one — the one who is supposedly retiring — but this is his son. He (the son) may be taking new patients in a few months or a year if I can wait that long, I’m told. But this is not really a very good health “strategy” for me.
Nexxxxxt: the fifth most highly-recommended doctor. …. and the comments about him on the RateMDs.com web site are getting downright bitter. One patient writes, “My family has seen Dr. ______ and I must agree with some of the negative comments. His staff is useless, they donot seem to be trained well, and not overly friendly. Dr. ______ has never been on time for any scheduled appts which our family has made. He does seem to be in La La land a lot… For these reasons our family has sought out a different doctor.” (Well good luck finding one). Another one writes: “I brought my daughter to see Doctor ______ for an emotionally stressful situation. He was extremely rude and tactless. My daughter left in tears with him following us out in the hall insulting us as we left. EXTREMELY UNPROFESSIONAL.” Holy shnikies.
Result: (and by the way, there were other bad comments and some good ones too, to be fair)… he too works at a walk-in clinic — the same one as the other guy, above. So I’ll also put him on the back-burner for now. ….
Nexxxxt: The sixth most highly-rated doctor….. the comments at the web RateMDs.com website are bad on this one too. “He needs to go back to the farms of Saskachewan” and so on. And even as I’m working on this project to find a new doctor, I’m watching Fox News Channel and this story is being covered right now: it’s about how Obama’s government-run “healthcare” plan is already causing doctors to quit, and thus causing a shortage of doctors there.
So there goes my backup plan to go across the border if I have to…
And even as I update my Twitter feed with my latest trials and tribulations about finding a new doctor (this post), I see a Tweet from a local news radio station pointing to this headline: “British Columbians have lowest health care approval rating – Angus Reid survey on patient satisfaction”. People are going to think I’m making this up! …
Result: After spending tens of minutes trying to find his phone number, I finally found it only to realize it’s the same office as the one I already called (above) with the father/son doctors, none of whom are taking new patients.
Nexxxxt: The seventh most highly-rated doctor, and the last one in my area. …
Result: Once again, not taking new patients.
I’ve now spent the whole morning trying to find a new doctor. I have to eat some lunch now, and then I’ll have to get back to not doing any productive work, for which I’m nonetheless still expected to pay the government — to look after my “healthcare” for me.
Back after lunch.
Hi again. You thought I’d given up, didn’t you? No — that’s what they hope we’ll do. Then we no longer need a doctor! No right after lunch, I started looking around for other online sources of doctors and found this one: the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC. They have a search function to help you find doctors that are accepting new patients. That will save me all sorts of time trying to find their phone numbers and calling them. Well it sure did save me some time!…
I called another one I found in another search of that RateMDs.com website, this time expanding my search geographically. He isn’t right in my area, but near enough.
Result: not taking any new patients.
OK I’m actually running out of reasonable options now.
Thinking…
I called the walk-in clinic that I’d put on the back burner earlier and asked if I could make an appointment. She said I only could if one of their doctors was my regular family doctor. Which of course none of them are. So I have to go there and wait. I guess maybe I’ll do that tomorrow since I’ve got nothing but time on my hands.
It’s now 4:15 PM. This took me all day, and I found no doctor except those (sort of) available (at some point, if I can wait long enough) at a walk-in clinic. It’s time which I might otherwise have used to do something productive.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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