question about switching doctors

[disfan07]

Would you switch from one doctor to another doctor if they work together sometimes?

I have been in california for 6 months. For teh first few months, I really liked my pulmonologist adn he seemed to really listen and to be very competent. In the past 2 months, he doesnt seem to be listening at all. At every appointment, the only thing that he mentions is wantign me to start a new medication (its a fairly new medication that can have severe side effects) but never answers my questions about it or my concerns about it. It feels like I am talking through him and not to him and I constantly feel like I am being ignored at my appointments.

Thsi past week, I was in the hospital and he was not there for 3 of teh days so tehre was another pulmonologist covering for him. This pulmonologist was amazing. He was very caring, he listened and answered all my questions and took teh time to get up to speed on what was wrong adn my past history. After this hospitalization, I have been thinking about swicthing from my current pulmonologist.

Heres my concern....
I want to switch from my current pulm. to the one I saw in teh hospital. The problem is, they occassionally work together and obviously cover each others patients. So im worried about ending up in teh hospital and having my current doctor covering for the other doctor. I really liked this other doctor and I feel like he woul dbe bette rthan my curretn doctor but im really concerned about switching.

I mean....what really pushed me to this was when my nurse told him that she was concerened because she heard very very faint breath sounds in my right lung adn was concerned about a collapsed lung and he completely ignored her. Later that day when he left for his vacation, she called the pulmonologist who was covering for him adn told him what she had heard and he came in and listened adn did a chest x-ray adn it turned out i had a small spontaneous pneumothorax....luckily it healed itslef within 24 hours but still. If hes not going to listen to the nurses (who i swear know more than the doctors do) or listen to me about my concerns, should i really stay as his patient.

1)Would you switch doctors in this situation or would you wait it out a little longer?

2) If you would switch doctors, would you switch to one who works with your curretn doctor and who might have your current doctor covering for him at some point?

Any opinions woul dbe great

 

[jrsmom]

If you like this doctor better then I would say yes.

 

[dispor]

1) I'd switch right now. You've only been with the current doctor 6 mos. anyway. You deserve a caring, competent doctor and you have been lucky enough to find one! Go for it! If you try to find a third doctor, you won't know what you're getting.

2) I can understand your concern about at times ending up with the original doctor. Maybe you can discuss your concerns with the new doctor. When I was hospitalized during my pregnancy, the nurses would always tell me that my doctor wasn't covering that day, but sure enough he would always show up! Maybe the new doctor is like that, too.

Kuddos to that nurse for not only hearing the problem, but for following up on it as well!

Hope you are doing better!

 

[RachelNinja]

I would switch. My dad had a cancerous tumor in one of his kidneys this past summer. He has to go to a urologist for checkups to make sure everything is okay. There's nothing extremely terrible with the doctor he saw first, but we now know that another doctor is better. Even our gastroenterologist said the other guy was better.

Of course, both doctors work in the SAME office. I told my mom to switch it anyway. If it's about health, especially my dad's health, I don't care if it makes anyone uncomfortable. I want my dad taken care of.

So I would suggest switching to the other doctor. When my mom said she didn't know what to say to the staff about switching, I told her to say that we don't have any problems with the original dr but that a "friend" (really our GI doctor) recommended the other guy. They ended up not even asking.

If you are more comfortable with the other doctor (AND you have proof that he's more competent, not even just based on recommendation), switch. We want you to be taken care of too!