Well, after speaking to a 2nd CDE at my endo’s office on Thursday and Friday, my 1st CDE game me a call on Monday afternoon (this was after not returning a call from the previous Tuesday). I had spoken to the office manager on Thursday, expressed my frustration, and was told she’d talk to the 1st one. The manager hadn’t spoken to her by the time I was called, so I told her that I was frustrated because she hadn’t returned my call on Tuesday and no one else had picked up her messages.
Her classic response? “Scott, you have honestly been getting more hand holding than most of our other patients. It comes down to you taking some responsibility for yourself”. I cut her off and explained that I knew very well my health was my responsibility and was about to just lay into her, but I decided that this situation was not worth getting angry over or trying to save. I just stopped and said “Your response to that makes this an easy decision. You’re fired and I guess I’ll be getting a new endo as well. Thanks”. Honestly, think she was actually speechless when I said that, but I just hung up.
From my perspective:
This was the 2nd time she had not returned a call since Oct 31. I was trained on that Friday and she did not return a call on the following Monday.
I had been having incredible problems with insertion sets, which seemed to be solved by the switch from Humalog to Novalog.
That change happened right before Thanksgiving and I had not spoken to her since
I had been having so many problems that I honestly don’t feel that I have the knowledge yet to make changes I need. I’m still very uncomfortable making changes to basals, ratios, etc… I don’t think I ever had a “stable” place to start from before, hopefully I do now.
When I heard her response, my first thought was “so, it’s my fault you didn’t return my call?”.
She’s supposed to be setting my expectations on what to expect from her, she had certainly never before suggested anything like “I’d like to see you do this yourself for a week, making the changes you need and we’ll look at it next week.” Heck, I would have had no problem with that.
You know, I know I can be a real pain in the rear. I’m stubborn, arrogant and honestly just have very little tolerance anymore for BS or having my time wasted. I have very high expectations for projects and I like to get them done. From the doctor’s appointment where we first talked about pumping, I had a pump in my hands in less than two weeks, approved by insurance. I expect this to work, or I would not have even tried. I am doing it so I can live a better, longer life, and I’m not being responsible enough.
Are my expectations too high? Have other people had this many problems getting started pumping?
Anyway, I called another endo this afternoon and hopefully I’ll be able to get in with a another CDE in a week or so.
Whew, felt good to vent… thanks to everyone here who has given me support these last few weeks. The support and reading of other peoples stories and experiences have been a great help to me.
Scott if you can’t find a CDE call the manufacturer of your pump trainer and ask them to send a CDE to help you. My doctor has no one but me on the pump and Medtronic sent an independent CDE to help me get my settings down correctly. I have access to her anytime, that might be the way to go until you can find a new Endo. Good luck and hang in there, I hope it gets better for you soon.
Scott, if expecting someone to return a lousy phone call is stubborn or arrogant . . . .
I once had my endo get annoyed with me because I didn’t call him over the weekend and waited until Monday when I had a question, so I can’t really relate to bad docs, but all things considered, I’m surprised you reacted as well as you did! That got my blood boiling, and I’m a thousand miles away and don’t know you from Adam.
Scott,
My daughter and I have had the same problem, we too told the Doctors your dumber than the paper the fake writing is on so what is your real name. We have switched to a new doctor, we had different ones and they knew nothing about diabetes as far as we were concerned. they new doc we are with now is diabetic and wears a pump also. we are very happy now he explains everything and doesn’t try to shove us out the door without answering all our questions. this doc even gives his cell number to us so that we can call with any questions about the pump or if we are ill.
we have also fired two educators that didn’t know what they were talking about. we turned them all in to the medical board and the state health department for the treatment. the one my daughter had we also complained to the human resource person at the clinic.
Good luck finding a new doc, hang in there and keep us posted.
To the credit of the office manager, she called my back a few minutes ago and apologized for what had happened. She said that she hated to see me loose good endo (and that is true) because of a CDE and that she’d follow up on it with both the CDE and the doctor. She said I could see another CDE if I wanted, (there is even a Diabetes Education Center in the same building), but I told her that I would feel uncomfortable. So she’s going to mail be a copy of my records and I’ll go on from there. I’ve already started with another based on the recommendation of the Medtronic CDE I had been talking to on occasion.
After finally receiving a copy of my records, there seems to be missing info. Her summary page says I am leaving because I want someone to provide tighter follow-ups, despite they had returned 10 calls in 17 business days. I can find what appears to be records of only 4 or 5 and only 1 “official” call sheet. No where (of course) is not returning calls mentioned and she recommends psychological counseling for me so I “can continue to move forward”. In particular, the conversation of Nov 25th is not mentioned where we made several changes and she arranged for a couple of vials of Novalog to be there for me to pick up on the 26th. You’d think a change of insulin type would be worth mentioning. Also I see no mention of all the trouble I was having with infusion sets.
There is also no record of the complaint I made. Seriously, are my expectation of things way to high? At this point I am tempted to talk to the state medical board
