August 4, 2012
Dear Dr. Arnaout:
This letter follows our meeting of July 30, 2012 and I am writing with a simple message: get over yourself! Your job is to serve people with cancer, specifically women with breast cancer. This is not a platform for your ego.
Have you ever considered the impact that it has on your patients when you walk into the examination room wearing a head scarf of the type that your patients will soon have to be wearing? You treat patients who are going to lose their hair and many will have serious problems with that. Not to mention that the chemo that will wipe out their hair will also make them feel wretched for months. Having a perfect head, I had the luxury of being totally down with my dome, but it will be traumatic for many women. Do not wear a headscarf that looks like you too have cancer! I just about fell off of my chair when you walked into the room wearing that thing. It took me a full 5 minutes to be sure that you weren't also a victim of cancer. Does it bother you that your patients have something that you don't? Do you need to be the centre of attention that badly?
I am not stupid. Please don't speak to me as if I am. Also, please don't respond to my questions with, "Let me finish!". Our meeting should not be a platform for some rehearsed speech that you have about how you like things to work. Ideally, your patients should be able to have a conversation with you about treatment. My questions are all valid, even if you think they are stupid. You should treat them that way. It shouldn't matter if they don't arise at the scripted time of your speech.
They are my tits. If I can make jokes about them, then you need to lighten up and let me. If I joke about how you are going to lop them off, then go with me. Don't take offense. When you look at your med student, aghast, after I crack a joke, try to remember that I'm sitting there and can see you. Refer above, I'm still not stupid. Refer above again, get over yourself.
Don't tell me that my former surgeon and my current oncologist don't know what they're talking about without giving me some references, resources, citations. It's not helpful to give a person in crisis contradicting information without providing more. Don't try to eliminate the confidence your patients have in their other doctors. You might be wrong.
Don't tell me that I'm "a little bit weird". You ain't seen nothing - I take weird to a whole new level and that's frankly just tough! I didn't bring you a sacrifice to lay at your altar, I do not come on bended knees. I come with a horrific matter that I am hoping you can help me solve. My humour in this situation doesn't make me weird or strange or funny. It makes me resilient beyond your wildest dreams and you should learn to recognize that strength in your patients. Refer above again: I am not stupid and this is not about you.
When you examine my breast after your med student has told you (but no one has yet told me) that there is a lump in my other breast, do not turn to the student and say, "Oh ya, I can feel that. You did a good exam. Wow!" I AM STILL IN THE ROOM. IN FACT, I'M MOSTLY NAKED LAYING ON THE TABLE WITH MY BOOB IN YOUR HANDS!!! Perhaps you should consider addressing your remarks first to the patient and then (or even later??!!) to your student. And while we're on the topic of the new lump in my left breast, did you know that you were using your out loud voice when you said, "Let's get an ultra sound on this for the file. I'm sure that it's nothing but we'll want to document that so we're covered." I suggest that a more appropriate response to finding a lump would be to LOOK AT THE PATIENT and try something along the lines of, "We have found a lump in your breast so we're going to order an ultra sound to rule out it being anything other than an ordinary cyst. It doesn't seem to be anything serious to me."
By the way, it's been a full week and no one has called me for the ultra sound booking. I thought you might like to know.
In short Doc Arnaout, it was not a pleasure to meet with you. If I still had cancer and you were the last doctor on the planet I don't think I'd let you operate on me. While I have no doubt that you are a skillful surgeon, as a human being and as a medical professional, you suck. That one IS about you.
Sincerely,
Donna, Still Looking for a Surgeon
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