OT: Medical RANT-I'm tired of foreign doctors

[J Miller]

We have been going to a clinic for the last 8 years that seems to be a gate way or a training center for foreign doctors.
Now before anybody accuses me of bigotry let me say I couldn't care less where a doctor comes from if he/she knows his/her stuff.
The problem is I can't understand them. I have a hearing loss that makes it very hard for me to distinguish between the "f" sound and "s" and other phonetic similarities. So many of these foreign doctors have soft voices or hi pitched voices and then combine that with their accents and they might as well be speaking Greek. I just can't understand them.
Next is they never stay long. At best we end up with a new doctor ever 6 to nine months. It's a pain in the @$$ starting all over again every other time we go to the clinic.
One of the things we've been doing is both me and my wife have been going into the doctors office together. Her hearing is better than mine and she's been helping me with what I just can't understand.
That's worked out great until the last doctor who would only see us one at a time.
After that we specifically asked for a dr who would see both of us. Nope none would.
I got p.o.'d and said to hell with it, get our money back and lets go.

I'm tired of foreign doctors. I want an AMERICAN doctor that speaks AMERICAN.
Is that too much to ask for?

We're looking for a new clinic now. Enough is enough.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just bugged about this.

Joe

[piller]

Due to insurance companies cutting back on how much they are willing to pay, and the cost of malpractice insurance being in the obscene territory, there are fewer Americans going to become Doctors. Additionally, have you looked at the price of college educations lately, you cannot pay your loans off without family help in most cases. Maybe AJMD429 will shed some more light on this subject.
I personally prefer a Doctor who understands me and whom I understand, but as a Pharmacist I am in a different situation from some.

[Hillbilly]

I hate to sound like a mysoginst myself... but I have quit -fired a couple of doctors who were not able to communicate in my mother tounge.

Very sad too... the hour you spend in an office call .... most of the contact is with a RN or PA these days... I really insist the 30 seconds I actally have with the DOCTOR is a meaningfull communications experience.

Jeff

[Blaine]

If the Doc is patient with me and works with me to make sure we understand each other, I don't mind. Of course, having been in the Army 20 helps with this: If you can understand a New Yorker or that guy from JawJa, or the Koreans or Japanese, you got it made for understanding just about anyone.....

[brionic]

Get used to it. Phyician friends of mine tell me that within a generation the vast majority of doctors in this country, specialist aside, will be foreigners.

[J Miller]

Well as usual some of you missed the point. It's not that they are foreigners exactly, it's that they speak with an accent and usually soft or high pitch voices. With my hearing I can not understand them.
I won't be alive for another generation, so I don't care what happens then, well yes I do. This influx of foreigners is going too far.

Enough is enough, I want an American DR that speaks American. Period. And I won't "get used to it".

Joe

[brionic]

I personally prefer a Doctor who understands me and whom I understand, but as a Pharmacist I am in a different situation from some.

"Hmmm... Doctor -- Pharmacist.... Doctor -- Pharmacist... I'm going with the Pharmacist!"
= Larry David

[Hobie]

If the Doc is patient with me and works with me to make sure we understand each other, I don't mind. Of course, having been in the Army 20 helps with this: If you can understand a New Yorker or that guy from JawJa, or the Koreans or Japanese, you got it made for understanding just about anyone.....

And for how long have the majority of doctors in the Army been "foreigners"? I remember my last year at Yongsan Garrison. There was one "American" doctor and 3 Koreans, all officers in the US Army. They had started a new program that gave foreign nationals commissions if they were doctors to fill those slots. My ETS physical was handled by 5 different physicians none of whom spoke English without an accent.

By the way, I noticed the doctor of the woman who just had octuplets was named Gupta...

[Blaine]

जी Wiz जो .... दो इनमें से लो और सुबह मुझे फोन

[J Miller]

जी Wiz जो .... दो इनमें से लो और सुबह मुझे फोन

Blain .................. what the heck is that?

Joe

[Blaine]

जी Wiz जो .... दो इनमें से लो और सुबह मुझे फोन

Blain .................. what the heck is that?

Joe

Hindi

[J Miller]

जी Wiz जो .... दो इनमें से लो और सुबह मुझे फोन

Blain .................. what the heck is that?

Joe

Hindi

HAH, that must be what my last Dr was speaking. Sure didn't sound like Eeengrish to my ears.

Joe

[Griff]

And it's not just happening here in the US. When I went down to NZ for the family reunion I came down with the flu. My cousin said, I could see a non-native english speaking Dr. at the clinic for free, or I could see a Dr. there in town in private practice. I must admit, the $90NZ including the flu-shot at the private Dr. was simple, quick and I was back on my feet in two days. Not saying visiting the public clinic wouldn't have produced like results, but there is that communication issue, plus the comfort level. Although... the Doc noted that "you speak funny"!

Guess "Texan" is also a difficult to understand dialect when not in TX!

[AmBraCol]

And it's not just happening here in the US.

That's true. Before we changed our EPS (Health Protection Entity - kind of like an HMO) one of our doctors was a Cuban. Thank God we've not had any Mexicans or Argentinians - there's a couple of accents I can do without, thank you very much. So, not only is it not only a problem in the US, it's not only a problem with English... By the way, the Cuban was much easier to understand than a Colombian from the Caribbean coast would be. There's ANOTHER accent I can do without.

[bigbore442001]

We have a situation here in my hometown where the local hospital is dominated by Indians. Whether it is coincidence or not it seems they as a group are big pill pushers for a lack of a better term.

[Pete44ru]

wouldyouliketobuyaflowerforthelady?

.

[brionic]

Whether it is coincidence or not it seems they as a group are big pill pushers for a lack of a better term.

They get "incentives" from the pharmaceutical companies. It is a growing issue in the medical community that has escalated in the last decade.
There is certainly benefit for doctors who attend conferences sponsored by the pharm. companies in terms of ongoing education. But take a gander at the slinky attire of many of the reps when they are out in the field and you have to wonder what they are selling. Also, for the price of a lot of the meds, there sure seem to be A LOT of free samples provided to the physicians FOR FREE in order to get them to prescribe. Think about how sales reps are offered cruises, cars, hotels rooms, etc. etc in order to push products.

There is nothing necessarily "wrong" with this, but IMO the medical field has elvolved into more of a business than a profession.

[Ysabel Kid]

Get used to it. Phyician friends of mine tell me that within a generation the vast majority of doctors in this country, specialist aside, will be foreigners.

Yep. As soon as Obama socializes the health care industry - for our own good, mind you - no one is going to rack up the bills or headaches to become a doctor for what little they will get paid.

Medicine outsourced to the lowest bid... what a concept...

[AJMD429]

Well, us Anglos are quitting in droves, because we had to borrow up to a quarter million dollars and delay entering the work force until we were in our thirties, so by the time we were moving out of the ghetto apartment and rusty cars, our friends were moving into their fancy homes, paying down the boat loans, and hosting barbeques. That's fine, if you can 'catch up' which used to be the case (and believe me, still is, for many of the 'specialties'), but no longer possible in family practice, which provides 90% of the nation's basic care. We survive by doing bo-tox injections for cash (THOSE patients never complain about our charges, unlike the ones whose cancers or pneumonias we treat!), or by becoming 'loss leaders' for hospitals who want our names to market to insurance companies (which is why the 2-minute visits - those doctors are usually on quotas). Very few are staying in 'private practice' because if we provide BETTER care, or spend more time with patients, the insurance companies CUT our income substantially.

It's like if you had a 'free meal' coupon from your employer - and they based their reimbursement to the restaurant on what the lowest fees anyone would accept were - say BurgerCastle. You take that to SwordfishGrill, because you want a better meal, and if the reimbursement is the same, you're going to get dumpster cat instead of swordfish.

In the "real" world, you could say, "Gee, I know my employer swiped pre-tax money from me to buy meal insurance I don't really like, but as long as I paid for it, I'll take my card to the restaurant I LIKE, and use it to pay part of my bill, and give them another ten dollars to offset the cost of the swordfish vs. the soyburger." You can do that with everything but healthcare, which is why computers are getting cheaper and faster and better, and why there is an endless variety of affordable quality restaurant fare out there to suit all occasions and taste. You CAN'T do that with health care, so if you want a doctor who spends 35 minutes with you instead of 5 minutes, you're going to use up seven times the overhead, but your insurance won't pay any differently. Since the profit margin is slim ($140 charge nets me $14 pre-tax income), your doctor really can't do much to change things.

Cash-pay patients even suffer, because the provision of health care has gotten so bureaucratic and inefficient that unless we ditch ALL insurance and ALL medicare, we can't be efficient enough to provide good care at realistic prices (before insurance, we could charge $26 instead of $140, and keep $12 of that $26!

The system sucks because socialism sucks, yet our wise trust-fund yuppie generation tells us it's all the fault of the flaws in the free market, so they use more socialism to 'cure' the problems a little socialism caused.

As far as the 'foreign' doctors - in some cases, they are the only ones willing to work for the wages now paid; I know many family physicians making less than $20 an hour because they REFUSE to compromise care just in order to help an insurance company or hospital make more money (in which case they could be cut in on the profits) - not much incentive to work in a high stress job, but to the docs from Bangladesh or someplace, it may seem lucrative. Culturally, they are also often more willing to accept a 'top-down' authority where an administrator tells them what to do.

Some of us white trash are just hard to 'manage'

[piller]

Based on AJMD429's information, I don't see how we can afford free health care as a country. No jokes intended.

[Old Ironsights]

AJ... what you say is true of almost ALL jobs that "require" a Higher Ed degree... even a Bachelor's.

When you can get an H-1 after paying virtually nothing for your Transferrable Foreign Degree and come in asking for 1/3 of what is required to just to pay Sallie Mae (who, if anyone cared to notice, didn't ask for or need a "bailout" because they COLLECT - whether you have the money or not...) we poor saps who went into hock to get a degree are screwed.

Maybe some people with disabled family members can live on 30K AND pay off the Goons from Sallie Mae, but most can't... not if they don't have a Chicago-Style "in" anyway...

[Mike D.]

You fellers can whine and snivel all you want about "foreign" MDs, but I owe my life to one IRAQI Doc who was medically observant enough to "see" my cancer when my regular "American" practitioner could not. BTW, this man may be Iraqi, but he is a Catholic and member of our Parish. I had no idea and had never met him before December of 2007. He is a REAL MD.

[SFRanger7GP]

And it's not just happening here in the US.

That's true. Before we changed our EPS (Health Protection Entity - kind of like an HMO) one of our doctors was a Cuban. Thank God we've not had any Mexicans or Argentinians - there's a couple of accents I can do without, thank you very much. So, not only is it not only a problem in the US, it's not only a problem with English... By the way, the Cuban was much easier to understand than a Colombian from the Caribbean coast would be. There's ANOTHER accent I can do without.

SHO no tengo asento raro, Che! SHO hablo casteshano perfecto! haha!

I spend a lot of time working with the Gauchos and Portenos en Argentina. You're right about that accent. The problem is its perfect for a "lazy tongue" speaking Spanish and it will stick to you if you're not careful. As far as the foreign doctors go, I haven't had any problems. But then again I spend more time speaking a foreign language than I do speaking Texan.

[Fairshake]

They did a 60 minutes segment on this very thing. The other part that was brought up is that the doctors use the visa and when it expires they stay anyway. A fast way into the country. The problem is that without complete understanding a person could die. I'm sure that this has already happened. In tried to explain my medications to a female doctor from India and the session was a complete failure. I also refuse to my my life into the hands of someone who can't grasp my Southern tongue.

[AJMD429]

Based on AJMD429's information, I don't see how we can afford free health care as a country. No jokes intended.

We can't. Health care is 'dying' in the same way all of our freedoms are, including firearms ownership.

I do think there is HOPE though, because perhaps we can CHANGE things after enough people get fed up with the current skin-deep politics of hate and envy and selfishness. Maybe then enough will see the light of freedom and the free market to shrug off the inefficient shackles of socialism.

We can only HOPE for CHANGE. (Thanks for the insight, Mr. O!)

It is frusturating to be in a system where I charge five or six times what I used to, and just to be paid about the same - I know those dollars are quietly sucked from hard-working people's paychecks, and are basically going to fund buildings full of clerks, claims processors, and lobbyists who will never treat a patient - they don't take blood pressures (they raise a lot!), stitch wounds, treat infections, or do preventative care. Useless bureaucrats.

Still, the rewards are there - when you can postpone a heart attack 10-15 years or more, or help some teenage girl learn to keep her boyfriend's pants on, or whatever. I just don't like what the 'system' is doing to the patients. It steals money from them, purchases products and services they don't want, then claims not to have the funds to pay for proper health care.

[Steelbanger]

My wifes Oncologist is, by looks, an oriental. She is sometimes a bit difficult to understand but always makes sure we have comprehended whatever she conveys. I have a log book that we started when it was discovered that my wife had cancer. I keep notes of everything I can otherwise it remains in memory, subject to my recall abilities. If I ask her doctor to repeat whatever she said or to spell it for me she always obliges. On our last visit this doctor spent at least 20 minutes with us. On several occasions she has called our house and cell phone just to touch base or report on test results or answer calls we made with some questions for her. Sure, it's difficult for an old deaf shooter such as myself to hear clearly but this doctor goes out of her way to be sure we understand. I wouldn't trade her for another and my wife just loves her. They even hug after every appointment.

I guess my point is that clear speaking ability isn't the highest priority of a caring doctor. Rather it's that desire to heal, comfort, and reassure their patients that all is being tended to in the best possible way. I have no idea where this illness will lead us but I have every confidence that everyone involved in our health care facility is doing everything humanly possible to succeed in healing my wife. And I don't care what their country of origin happens to be.

[BAGTIC]

Well as usual some of you missed the point. It's not that they are foreigners exactly, it's that they speak with an accent and usually soft or high pitch voices. With my hearing I can not understand them.
I won't be alive for another generation, so I don't care what happens then, well yes I do. This influx of foreigners is going too far.

Enough is enough, I want an American DR that speaks American. Period. And I won't "get used to it".

Joe

My 91 year old dad complains about how everyone talks. Gets real angry about it. Won't watch Jay 'Squeeky' Leno, not because of material but because he talks funny and is hard to understand. Dad will never admit it is his hearing problem and not their speaking problem.

My wife is an immigrant and there are several others (Filipino, Japanese, Korean, German, Italian) in the extended family. We all manage to communicate despite accents.

Most of the 'foreign' doctors I have had have been competent, patient, friendly. Can't say the same about many of the arrogant stuck up Anglo prima donnas I have dealt with.

Get used to it. It is here to stay.

[J Miller]

Bagtic,

READ MY LIPS -DO NOT TELL ME TO "GET USED TO IT". I WILL NOT! I AM NOT SOME THIRD WORLD PAUPER THAT IS RELIANT ON THE GOOD GRACES OF WHO EVER GETS AN ITCH TO DO SOMETHING FOR THEM, I AM AN AMERICAN WHO WANTS AN AMERICAN DOCTOR.
I've already stated it's not because they are foreign. I've already stated I am aware of my hearing problems. And I've already stated my reasons. Why do you feel you have to talk down to me as if I were a 6 year old just having to start school?
I understand your dad more than you do when it comes to hearing and peoples voices. And I can't stand Jay Leno either, Letterman's 10X better.

Joe

[OJ]

I graduated from med school more than half century ago and I doubt anyone here is more unhappy and discouraged with medicine as it exists today than I am. I got this email from a friend recently and would like to share it here -


TWO DIFFERENT DOCTORS' OFFICES

Boy, if this doesn't hit the nail on the head,
I don't know what does!

Two patients limp into two different medical
clinics with the same complaint. Both have
trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.

The FIRST patient is examined within the hour,
Is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for
Surgery the following week.

The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks
For an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist,
Then gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another week
And finally has his surgery scheduled for a month from then.
Why the different treatment for the two patients?



The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.
The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.

Next time take me to a vet

I've had serious heart problems the past 1 1/2 years and have received excellent care from cardiologists I knew before I retired. I was told I needed a primary care doctor and was referred to one (not even close to being foreign) who didn't seem to know how to do a decent history & physical - or just wasn't interested - relying on sending me as a referral to others - nowhere near what my patients got prior as pre-surgical history/physicals or even the pilots for their annual or biennial flight physicals. We parted company after the second visit agreeing to never have any contact with each other again. I realize most here don't have the advantage I do and can treat and prescribe for me and my wife-if needed.

The other serious problems are with the government/insurance companies. I doubt most here are not aware of the fact that, for 6 of the last 7 doctors Medicare fees have been reduced by our congress between 5% and 6% per year while the cost of hiring assistants in the office, rent, and the cost of practice have gone up with annual inflation. It's reaching the point they really can't afford to take many Medicare patients in their practices. As a result, patients are finding it difficult to find a new doctor when the one they had retires.

Anticipating such might happen, I have continued carrying my Blue Cross/Blue Shield so my doctors would be paid a decent fee for taking care of me. Another thing I suspect most people don't know is that the contract between Medicare and private insurance provides that, if the insurance covered patient is retired and getting Social Security, the insurance no longer has to pay the insurance rate fees but pays the Medicare level fees. Thus, my wife (not old enough for Social Security) and I see our eye doctor annually - we both have early cataracts - and he gets paid more for her care than he gets paid for my identical care. My insurance premiums haven't been reduced - far from that - they just announced their annual increase of about 15%.

Granted, the medical profession I worked so very hard to learn and practice well has greatly deteriorated but don't forget the blame that goes to our insurance companies and our elected officials that we, as patients, should be controlling with our votes.

[Jacko]

Fella's down here in Australia we have the same issues you have all discussed so far - I think we may be in a more dire situation as the previous Prime Minister the same grub that was responsible for introducing the droconion gun laws we have to cop here actually slashed the budget for univercity places for students looking to become doctors back in the 90's , setting us up for a forein doctor invasion . Ex president GW gave this grub America's highest civilian award a few weeks back . No reflection on Americans in general just one showing poor judgement choosing his mates . Government mismanagement at state and federal level has our health system bordering on meltdown despite the efforts of the many fine Australian and foreign Doctors and Nurses working in our hospitals and medical practices .

One Indian surgeon working on the central Queensland coast town called Bundaberg did a runner to his expensive house and family in America and was recently shipped back to us to stand trial for dozens of malpractice allegations and charges which may be proven to have caused up to 14 deaths and dozens of injuries . The press dubbed him Dr Death .

Sure we have a few bad eggs about but that goes for Aussie doctors as well but we also have we many foreign doctors including several I have seen over the years that are doing a fine job . One indian Doctor
did a bang up job ridding me of several melanoema's which could have proven a lot nastier [ as in dead ]

Generally the foreign doctors down here in my experience are very knoweledgable and thorough but I gotta agree they can be hard to understand - shooters ear myself , I can lip read pretty well but accents make it bloody hard .

regards Jacko