Want to send a letter to all the docs that were wrong!

[cobbiemommy]

What would you say to any (or all) of the doctors that had incorrectly diagnosed your child? I would like to put together a form letter to send to the numerous doctors that incorrectly diagnosed my child. What would you include? I want to be firm, but respectful. Hopefully, this could be used as a tool to educate the educated.

 

Any suggestions....

 

Cobbie

[Suzan]

What would you say to any (or all) of the doctors that had incorrectly diagnosed your child? I would like to put together a form letter to send to the numerous doctors that incorrectly diagnosed my child. What would you include? I want to be firm, but respectful. Hopefully, this could be used as a tool to educate the educated.

 

Any suggestions....

 

Cobbie

 

I did this years ago for a former doctor of mine who missed diagnosing my thyroid problem. I sent him a letter to let him know how I was diagnosed to maybe help people in the future because I really suffered for a long time and he basically was saying I was just stressed and needed to change my lifestyle. He wrote me back and said he would not change anything and did not feel he should have done anything differently. I figure he didn't want a possibility of any law suits. I just hope maybe he thought about it later and maybe added the antibody test onto his standard protocol.

 

I mention this because if you do this, if you can, let go of any expectations of getting any responses back or getting responses back that you did not expect or appreciate and just hope it helps others out in the long run.

 

Maybe there is a way to say, Hey, here's some information you may not have known about when you were diagnosing my child and I thought I'd pass it along since we would have benefited to hear about it sooner and would not have suffered so much....

 

Just some thoughts off the top of my head based on my experience with it.....

 

Susan

[matis_mom]

What would you say to any (or all) of the doctors that had incorrectly diagnosed your child? I would like to put together a form letter to send to the numerous doctors that incorrectly diagnosed my child. What would you include? I want to be firm, but respectful. Hopefully, this could be used as a tool to educate the educated.

 

Any suggestions....

 

Cobbie

 

I did this years ago for a former doctor of mine who missed diagnosing my thyroid problem. I sent him a letter to let him know how I was diagnosed to maybe help people in the future because I really suffered for a long time and he basically was saying I was just stressed and needed to change my lifestyle. He wrote me back and said he would not change anything and did not feel he should have done anything differently. I figure he didn't want a possibility of any law suits. I just hope maybe he thought about it later and maybe added the antibody test onto his standard protocol.

 

I mention this because if you do this, if you can, let go of any expectations of getting any responses back or getting responses back that you did not expect or appreciate and just hope it helps others out in the long run.

 

Maybe there is a way to say, Hey, here's some information you may not have known about when you were diagnosing my child and I thought I'd pass it along since we would have benefited to hear about it sooner and would not have suffered so much....

 

Just some thoughts off the top of my head based on my experience with it.....

 

Susan

I have many times thought about this. Currently, we are still seeing our pediatrician (new since we moved last), and she did miss the diagnosis, but has been very helpful and cooperative. Even Dr. L said, "you can't really blame her." So my approach is to keep seeing her for the day to day stuff and support with the other kids. Sometimes I do get a bit fed up of the routine, but I don't know that I would do any better anywhere else. At least she listens and tries to help.

But as for our old pediatrician, since I don't see them anymore (because of the move), I would maybe send them a letter, kind of updating them on our family situation and letting them know that all those little things they dismissed added up to a big thing later on. But I would do it in a very non-confrontational way. Otherwise it will get nowhere in terms of "educating" them (although it sure would feel good to discharge the anger!)

[MichaelTampa]

I have been thinking of doing this myself with a couple of the psychiatrist types. Any anger I have is really just about the system and how docs are too specialized to really help most people ... not a problem any one patient or doctor is going to be able to solve very easily. So, yes, just in the nature, of, maybe this can help one of their current or future patients. I really think these two people were caring and as helpful for me as they could have been, given their limited knowledge, and so, again, not much to be angry about toward them.

 

I really think it can be done better in person, or else a really long letter, to really give them a chance to learn. I would love to do it that way, but geeze, $300 per hour, you know... Thanks for pointing out Suzan, how it could be responded to, so, yes, just have to set the expectation of response properly.

 

Regarding your actual question, cobbie, gee, it depends who you are writing to. To a psychiatrist, it is, I think that so many infections can cause psychiatric and neurological symptoms, there is history behind this, seemingly it was more well known decades ago than now (wish I had the good information to back that up, I have read it probably here or lymenet). So look for infections, look for lyme, and here are some important ways to look (symptoms to look for, tests to do).

 

Michael