Health care is a right, and don't call me kiddo

Pet peeve #19: I hate being called kiddo. It really pisses me off (see left). I assume it is supposed to be a term of endearment. To me it means I'm a kid, less than, and I hate it with a passion. I stood there internally boiling when the nurse called me kiddo the other afternoon. I was boiling, I tell you. The conversation? It was about the clinic schedule. Which had been triple booked. 11 patients to see and staff in 3.5 hours. Complicated patients -- ones who often have never seen a doctor before and are coming in for, say, diagnoses of diabetes with renal failure. Not to mention my medical interviews had to be conducted in three different languages (who said my French would be useless here?). So to couple "hey - by the way, you're it today, but we scheduled for twice the docs" with a "kiddo" evoked a reaction in me I didn't expect. I didn't do anything about it -- it would have been unprofessional. Kind of like, say, calling me kiddo.

Last week in general was full of hard work. I finally finished my research project and managed to return to the farmers market again on Wednesday where I got my picture taken with the OB Robot and froze my butt off watching the lunar eclipse. The weekend was uneventful mostly thanks to the rainy, cold weather we've been having.

My project, basically, looked at the population seen by Father Joe's clinics and what kind of unique issues might be addressed. I had hoped to talk about LGBT homeless and runaways, however the LGBT Youth Center and housing coalition never returned my calls. I also briefly addressed the issue of illegal immigrants and their non-existent access to health care. Excerpt from my report:

Poignant example, an elderly woman brought in illegally by her daughter (whose status was unclear but who was fluent in English and well-established in the San Diego area). This woman had a stroke with left sided weakness and swallowing difficulty. However, speech and swallow evaluation, therapy and additional rehabilitation resources were an impossibility. Even if she returned to Mexico it appeared unlikely she would get the help she needed.

I don't care how you feel about immigration, you cannot deny that this woman deserves care here, now. Who would care for her in Mexico? Her family is here. How would she get around with her hemiparesis alone while her legal alien or even resident children risked losing the jobs if they went to help care for her? How would you feel if you had a stroke in a foreign country where you don't speak the language and no one could help you?

I barely touched on LGBT and immigration issues and ended up primarily addressing the issue of nutrition. A majority of the patients seen at The Village (the source of most the data I used) are homeless. Many of their top diagnoses could easily be linked to nutritional concerns. So I talked to the San Diego Food Bank, some other shelters and sites and read a few articles and came up with some theoretical suggestions for the population.

And now the project - hooray - is done. I have two more days of clinic (Mon, Tues) and then it's back to Tacoma for my favorite* of all rotations: surgery.

* "favorite" actually meaning "most loathed". Sarcasm can be hard on blogger.
photos shamelessly pasted from google image