Since patient-centric care seems to be one of the primary tenets of world-class hospitals, I thought I'd post this letter from Michael Weiss, the "professional patient." I asked him to describe his worst patient experience.

Even though this would never happen at your hospital or physician practice, if it did, how would you respond to this letter?

Hospital Impact: Can you describe your worst patient experience? Why was it so horrible?

Michael Weiss:
"My worst experience was how I was treated by my first Los Angeles Pain Management physician. I detailed this experience at length in a recent Post entitled Choosing a Pain Management Physician – Part 3 of 3 and to cap it off I included the letter that I wrote to this doctor once I recovered from the flare-up. Your readers can get the background by checking out the Post but the letter pretty much captures why it was so horrible:

Dear Dr. X:
Since I have been a professional Patient Advocate for most of the 25 years I have had Crohn’s Disease, I could not let alone the deplorable conduct you and your associate physician displayed when I attempted to get treated on Monday, September 26, 2005.

More specifically, after having been referred to you by Dr. Y in New Jersey, flying out to California specifically to meet with you to see whether we would work well together, supplying you with over 60 organized pages of detailed records from my previous Pain Management physician, supplying you with a detailed list of my numerous surgeries and other ailments, explaining my treatments in detail so that it was crystal clear how I was being treated and having you emphatically state that you would treat me in a manner commensurate in which I was treated and that as a result I should feel comfortable in my understandably difficult transition from New Jersey to California, it is inconceivable to me that you completely abandoned me when I had a serious crisis with my Crohn’s Disease on Monday. Not only did you and your associate refuse to modify my medications to combat my flare-up but you never even spoke to me when I called your office afterwards to try to understand why you chose to ignore what you had promised to do – nor did your office return my call as they said they would???? I don’t even know how to categorize such actions and non-actions but I can tell you that as a result I was petrified, in severe pain and completely clueless as to where to turn to seek compassionate care – the kind of compassionate care I have been receiving for the past 25 years and the type of care that you promised to provide.

My case is highly complex and apparently it is beyond either the scope of your capabilities or the lengths to which you will go to care for patients and their lifestyles as opposed to simply making sure that your day and record is simple and clean. Yet you specifically encouraged me to trust you with my care??? Then, when I had such a significant Crohn’s Disease flare-up that my gastroenterologist is trying a new experimental medication on me (because he obviously read my detailed records and understands how important it is to attempt to get me better without a hospital stay) – it was as if all of the above never occurred? Then when I wanted to speak to you to try to understand what could possibly be the rationale behind your radical change – you and your office completely ignored me? It is unfathomable to me that this has occurred in such a sophisticated city such as Las Angeles – again – especially after all of the documentation provided to you.

Dr. X – your associate telling me that I should check into a hospital if my pain is so severe exposes why that associate obviously chose the wrong sub-specialty because it is for that very reason that I see a Pain Management person – that is – so that I can have somewhat of a normal life despite my numerous occasional disabilities and stay out of the hospital when it is at all possible. Anyone can tell me what I cannot do or that if I am so sick I need to be in a hospital but after 20 surgeries and 150 hospital stays I need an intelligent and compassionate physician who sees the totality of the circumstances and will prescribe a course of treatment that helps to free me from these disabilities – rather than a book smart self-absorbed physician who couldn’t care less that I start a new job on Friday and that a hospital stay would have been disastrous. Additionally, your associate did not even examine me – he simply opened up my one page folder and declared that he was not prescribing any more medication. So, why in the world did your office even bother to set me up with an appointment? You, your associate physician and your staff should be embarrassed by how sloppily I was treated – I move here, methodically explain my situation and trust you to alleviate any fears I may have if I get sick – then I get sick and you abandon me?

Your associate will tell you that I was unruly, that I cursed, etc. – this is all true and a direct result of being utterly frustrated and in pain - but what he didn’t see was the 15 hours that I laid on the bathroom floor last night screaming in pain and the 5 or 6 hours I cried like a little baby because I was scared and had no-one to turn to as I await my turn at starting a regime of X for my Crohn’s Disease by my new gastroenterologist who happened to be on vacation this week. It would have been nice if the one physician I trusted would have helped me through the situation but that was not to be the case as you and your associate strangely felt it more appropriate to use my difficult and complex situation to classify me as some type of crazy patient – after I came to California with impeccable credibility as a serious patient??? Shame on you - if you would have only read the damn treatment notes and actually cared about my treatment.

I subsequently called Dr. Y since he was the last Pain Management doctor to treat me before I entrusted my care to you and he is helping me through this episode while I search for a more appropriate Pain Management doctor. Upon my first attempts I am finding some extremely qualified doctors but no openings until December – which only magnifies the fright you have caused by my entrusting my care to you and not searching for another doctor. In any event, I simply wanted you to hear my side of this story so that you avoid doing this to another patient."