Here’s some of what’s going on at the new Aurora VA facility:
Orthopedics Policy: Err on the easiest and least expensive side of patient care decisions. The benefit of any doubt will not go the patient. The following fundamental, systematic failures presently support this policy:
- Empathy. VA staff are pre-disposed to doubt, minimize and overlook patient concerns. Rhymes with apathy.
- Stove-piping. Poor internal coordination between clinics and doctors hurts patients with delays. More critical aspects fester in wait.
- Communication. Electronic gobbledygook is no substitute for human interaction. Then review #1.
- Diagnostic Stratification. Diagnostics start with #1 & 3. Do the work being called for, and stop looking for reasons not to.
Despite needing to Google half the terms I see in them, it doesn’t seem that difficult to read and understand my medical records. I can only speculate that doctors did not look back far enough and/or spend enough time putting 2-and-2 together. My diagnosis obviously became an exercise in futility right off the bat, for some reason.
The patient experience becomes a never-ending series of Q/A repeated over-and-over, with outstanding issues not tracked and run to ground. The record becomes a lengthy discourse of random doctor-speak appended over months and years in my case, never to be deciphered into a coherent single patient picture in anyone’s mind ever again. It’s just reading comprehension and listening – basic stuff. VA staff did not appear to be interested in taking the time to exercise these skills with me.
Being steered back to Primary Care becomes a time-wasting, stove-piping exercise in futility. Slow response, vague steering and push-back from Primary Care injected an insurmountable confusion factor. That should never happen, with the possible exception of dispensing dangerous drugs and the like. Primary care should be a patient-led exercise, at least in my case, if they are really listening.
The VA has a serious cultural problem. Seems it’s been around for awhile, with my experience only occurring in the last 7 years or so. No amount of lip service from any new director will ever change that. When directly confronted with an obviously distressed patient, staff routinely minimized and waved away my complaints and pleas for help. Schadenfreude and inadequate training are apparent, to me – totally unacceptable. Organizational culture becomes emergent with (or without) training. What I experienced tells me it’s off the rails at the new Aurora VA.
This is a warning to prospective orthopedic surgery patients everywhere. Outcomes like this do not seem to be all that uncommon, yet somewhat understandable, considering the nature of orthopedic surgery. The ongoing year of mistreatment that followed in my case, is shocking. And remember: You are approximately 9,000 times more likely to be accidentally killed by a medical professional than anyone wielding a gun.
Here’s what a leaking disc looks like almost a year later. Any questions, Dr. Knight?
