Over the years I’ve seen many of you pediatric and internal medicine physicians at Vanderbilt Univeristy Medical Center. You may be employed at a hospital renowned for being the best and largest hospital and employer in Middle Tennessee but you, the doctors, are way behind the times. You are not like the doctors of Seattle Grace, you are not like McDreamy (or McSteamy), you’re not Luka from ER, you’re not Jack from Lost, you’re not even House.

You probably wouldn’t remember me and I know you wouldn’t remember my name, much less how to spell it (even if you’re my PCP). I’ve seen so many of you over the years that I might not remember your name either–so I guess we’re even on that front. You may think you’re groundbreaking researchers and physicians in many areas, and you may well be, but let me tell you this: YOU FUCKING SUCK with bedside manner and chronic pain patients.

Doctors can get a little cocky, I know because my father is one of them, and they can assume they know your case and your problems and your story before they take the time to listen (if you’re lucky enough to snag one that actually listens). Reporting that you’re in pain and need medication to ease it means you are a junkie, you are faking it, and you are just groveling for some meds to get your next fix. And dear god, if you’re underage and you need pain killers well then you’re doing the dirty work for your junkie parents or you’re just exaggerating, after all children can’t have chronic pain disorders, right? You guys are so behind the times that you don’t even have A PAIN MANAGEMENT CLINIC, which nearly every hospital does nowadays. Hell, even small practices are taking on pain management with fervor, but not a rich, educated hospital like Vanderbilt.

In the area of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome you really are clueless, once more. You think what the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia says about their study with RSD and exercising for eight hours a day is the Word Of God, and that’s all you can try out. Don’t do your own studies or give your patients any options, go ahead, leave them feeling like they’re doomed, after all, they are junkies. 

You think I’m exaggerating by now, I can tell. The last paragraph was just for one doctor, Dr. Lawton (a pediatric rheumatologist), who told me about an exercise program for minors with RSD (drop out of school and exercise constantly, see if it rewires your brain, don’t give them any relief for the massive amounts of pain they’re enduring just for your study). He also suggested my RSD (which he diagnosed) was just “emotional”. Bullshit.

I haven’t even moved on to those assholes at the very new Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital Emergency Room. That’s a totally different entry.

But I just want to say one thing to the brilliant young doctor (Dr. Kristine Ehst, Internal Medicine) who suggested my pain that causes me to writhe and scream and moan and yell and sob in pain was just ‘growing pains’, and prescribed some ‘Bengay’ for it (and nothing else), and who told me one afternoon when I was leaving her office to “go out and have some fun this weekend”.

Well damn, Dr. Ehst. I was planning on sitting at home watching Passion of the Christ, hitting my legs and arms with hammers so I could be in that chronic pain I keep telling you about, reciting the Illiad, and maybe even giving myself an enema, but since you told me to “go out and have some fun this weekend” I guess I’ll have to change my plans.