My old pdoc was the best. I saw her for 10 years, and she just retired. When I was looking for new pdocs on the internet, I realized she had straight 5 star reviews, so I got really lucky with her. She really listened to me and gave out a cell phone number to call for after-hours emergencies. She tinkered with my meds if necessary, but not every visit. She was also the pdoc to realize I was bipolar and not suffering from major depressive disorder. My new pdoc is highly rated, but he is very efficient, meaning he keeps to appointment times very closely (unless of emergency) instead of having to wait much past your appt. time, so he doesn't talk much during appointments unless you have issues. Still, he has a cell phone to call for after hours emergencies and has answered and called me back or called back if I left a message needing to talk to him during business hours with the receptionist. He switches meds if needed but hasn't tinkered with them every visit. He does listen and if he hears something to the extent that I am getting depressed or anxious or manic, he does change the meds some. He got me on new meds for sleep, which helped me quite a bit and cares what the meds do to me physically, ordering a blood test since it was a year when I had most of it checked (cholesterol, B vitamins, thyroid, etc.) to see both how I was doing and if the psych meds were affecting me physically.

I saw a really terrible pdoc before I saw my current one. She would not prescribe me any meds until I went around and got current med sheets from my pharmacy, my mail order pharmacy, and the hospital (I had recently been hospitalized for a perforated ulcer, nothing to do with psych issues). At the time, I had only been home less than 2 weeks from the hospital and was still in a great deal of pain (that operation is very painful, much worse than childbirth). I didn't understand this as my old pdoc (and the one I have now) could view the prescriptions from my pharmacy and mail order pharmacy on their office computers and didn't have me running around when I was healing from major surgery. Then, I asked if this doctor had a number I could call after hours or on vacations or weekends if I had an emergency. She did not seem to understand how a person could have an urgent matter that was not a 911 emergency. She said she just has voicemail. I asked, do you listen to your voicemail daily (such as after hours, weekends, vacation, etc.), and she looked at me as if I were crazy and said of course not, she only listened to her voicemails when she came back to work in her office. Needless to say, I never saw her again.