Sky,

You have a great way of reminding me why, exactly, I realllllly don't trust hospitals of any kind. I have a few nightmarish stories of my own.

The problem with almost any hospital and a lot of doctors is that they don't take your own knowledge of your body very seriously. I just read a very interesting first-person article in Reader's Digest (this month's) by a female doctor who was taught a very valuable lesson in that. Long story short, she has just put a longtime patient on a new med when the patient called with the concern of blurred vision. First the doc said she was irritated and thought it was trivial, and then dismissed it as "all in her head". That was until it was determined that the lab tech and the patient had accidentally switched glasses - an easily repairable mishap but proving the patient wasn't dumb and it wasn't all in their head. The doctor said the one thing she felt the most was chagrin as it proved not to just dismiss complaints out of hand and to treat her patients with more caring and thoughtfulness. I thought it was very well written.

some of it's magic
some of it's tragic
but i had a good life all the way......
~jimmy buffett