Doctor, Doctor…Gimme the News

Strange things continue to occur.

The first Monday after the CSU victory over CU, I had one of the most killer stomach aches I’ve ever known. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the shotgun beer-drinking technique performed with friends at the game, ritualizing our nostalgia. The symptoms hit a crescendo at around ten o’clock that Monday, highlighted by a sharp pain in my abdominal area. Leveraging the fine resources of WebMD, I put together a crackerjack diagnosis of appendicitis, centering around the symptoms of abdominal pain and being 29.

Lucky for me I had an interview that day at noon downtown. Nearly doubled-over in pain at the office, I decided to call my doctor to see if they could squeeze me in just ahead of my first face-to-face discussion with an interesting consulting firm. My first dial resulted in a busy signal. I thought it a bit odd for the line at a doctor’s office to be busy, but I chalked it up to either high call volume (it is the beginning of flu season), or technical difficulties. I waited a few minutes and tried again. I received the same result, that terrible tone that we’ve been trained to associate with disappointment since birth. I blew it off for a while and got back to work.

Twenty minutes later, I was back at it, dialing up the doctor hoping I could walk in and get him to tell me this is not an emergency situation. The prospect of calling a potential employer to tell them I’m sick wasn’t in the realm of appealing to me. I believe calling in sick to an interview is akin to telling them you’re not worth their damn time anyway. Unfortunately, my hopes were once again doused with disappointment as the busy signal mocked my plight. I was really getting frustrated. What kind of doctor’s office, a place providing care to the ill in a time of need, allows their phone to be busy, for whatever reason, for hours at a time? I could have a freakin’ alien in my stomach ready to pop out and start a global pandemic, and this guy has a telco issue? Give me a break.

With one more call I abandoned all hope of getting to the doctor ahead of the interview. This was a time to suck it up, regardless of what might be ruptured in my midsection. I got in the car and went downtown for the interview thinking I’d let it pass. And I did. I let my issue with the doctor pass as well. It’s one of those areas, such as shitty service at a car dealership, that gets me frustrated enough to talk about writing a letter, but not angry enough to actually do it. I think you’re with me here. A week or two passed since the incident, and I hadn’t thought a lot about it.

Then we got a voicemail from my father-in-law, surgeon general of WebMD hypochondria. Spend too long with this man and you’ll start believing you have MS, or smallpox. Just before his trip to Europe, he was experiencing some serious flu-like symptoms and wanted a quick once-over by his physician, our physician. Calling for an appointment, he continually received a busy signal. Not one to be discouraged by such trivial obstacles to good health, he saddled up in his car and drove over to the office.

Walking up to the door of suite 210, he saw a piece of paper taped to the door. This isn’t odd for a doctor’s office. There’s always some new HIPAA regulation requiring further clarification. However, this note was different. It said that the office had closed down, that patients are referred to the doctor down the hall, who should be able to get access to the doctor's medical records. No explanation was provided. No forwarding number or address given. Poof, like a Colts team in the night…he was gone.

So, today my research begins. There’s a story here. Doctors don’t just up and leave in the middle of the night without explanation. Yes, there was a period a year or so back when all of the other doctors in the practice moved out, leaving him with a large office to support, lease and all, but that doesn’t explain this sort of behavior. It’s not as if I missed a front-page story in the New York Times on how the fountain of youth had been discovered. Medical services never go out of demand, and a doctor could always move to a smaller office if necessary. Even more, a medical practice is no different than any other sort of business. Customer accounts have value, in that there is a cost to acquire them, and a benefit in having them. If his departure was a voluntary one, you’d think that he’d generate some sort of compensation for the referral of all of his patients. A sign on the door pointing us to “the guy down the hall”, doesn’t suggest anything along those lines occurred. Here’s a list of possibilities I’ve come up with:

His license was pulled due to some sort of gross medical malpractice.
He is running from creditors.
He had some sort of cataclysmic injury, or death.
He decided to join the Peace Corps.
He left his wife in the middle of the night for some Filipino floozy.
He found Jesus.
He found Jesus while on his own pharmaceutical samples.

Technorati Tags: Doctor Humor, Disappearances, Malpractice