Drink doctor, eat Sister, cook Mr. Bertenshaw, nurse me!

I just had a sad phone call.  Turns out my doctor is retiring from his practice to work on his medical software.  I guess that's what I get for finding a doctor who is a geek.

I had never had a regular family doctor who I was terribly happy with.  We didn't see a regular physician when I was growing up, if we had a problem we'd go to urgent care or a specialist. When I moved to Albany I left my first doctor because his staff was incompetent.  I left my second doctor because I had never met the man, I only ever saw a nurse practitioner who was a little too enthusiastic about prescription medications.  The staff there also managed to lose my file no less than three times.  They never did find any of my prior files, god only knows if anyone had ever reviewed my history.

I searched online extensively, but that doesn't usually tell you much about how you will relate to the doc.  Nevertheless I found the blog of local doctor and I really liked the way he wrote about his practice.  He was passionate about being a "family doctor" rather than just an internist or other primary care physician.  I went to my first appointment and it was the first time I ever felt like a doctor *really* listened to me.  He spent TIME with me.  He took extensive notes.  He respected me.  He didn't judge.  He also talked about how they are a true family practice and take care of all sorts of medical things, so I decided to start getting my annual exam and pap smear at their office (I wasn't very attached to my old gyno anyway).

Of course, when I came in for my second appointment (which was a pap) they had lost my file.  [What the hell?  Is there someone out there that's trying to keep my baseline blood work and detailed history from staying in a file?]  Luckily I really liked him so I stuck with him.  It did seem a bit awkward at that second appointment, there I was, cooch in his face and they had no record of me being there before.  I guess I would've preferred my history was on his computer before spreading and sliding to the end of the table.

I've only seen him a handful of times over the past few years, he probably doesn't even know who I am (which is completely understandable in this field), but I am really sad to see him go.  I always have felt confident that if I had something serious happen I'd have a compassionate, caring and thoughtful doctor to see.  Some of the doctors in the practice have worked for Planned Parenthood which gives me even more warm fuzzies if I were ever in a "situation".  The whole practice seems very liberal to say the least.  I've seen another doctor in his practice who I also liked a lot, but she also left last year.  Guh.  The third doctor in the practice is who Mr. Val saw last fall and I liked her a lot too, but now her caseload is massive with the other two docs leaving.

There are several new doctors in the practice.  I'm going to see one of them.  She's a D.O., and I like their approach.  We'll see how it goes.

Dr. Reider - I know you're even geekier than me, so if you track this back from Technorati I wish you the best and I've been happy to call you my family doctor for the past several years.  Take care.