Just a Small Thing

Medical thermometer (Photo credit: RambergMediaImages)

A while back I found a small growth on my tongue. When it didn’t go away on its own I was advised to have it removed and if possible, sent to pathology. 

It was a small thing and if we had been in the U.S. any general practice physician could have taken care of it right in the office. Getting it removed here turned out to be a bigger deal than we anticipated.

We first went to a new clinic in town that is run by a Canadian company and has a good reputation. The doctor there would not even see me. Without having even looked at my little hitchhiker, he insisted I needed a specialist called a stomatologist and told me I could find one at a place called CMK. 

We were not sure how to even find CMK and really wanted to go someplace we had at least heard something positive about, so we decided to call a Belgian physician we knew. He had seen David before and diagnosed his gall stones last year. He told me not to bother making an appointment because he could not remove it and recommended I find a stomatologist. 

At this point we were asking each other “what the heck is a stomatologist?”

Not knowing what else to do, we called CMK to get directions and headed back down town. The end result was I got the care I needed and did NOT need a stomatologist to get it done. When I saw the doctor there, he said he could remove it. When he realized I was nervous about having something cut out of my mouth he said: "It is a small thing."

I noted some similarities and some differences between taking care of something like this here versus the United States.

Similarities:
1. We had to wait a long time. It was one of those set ups where you “take a number” and wait for someone to yell out your number. We arrived before 8:30 am and they were already on number 29 with standing room only in the waiting area. We therefore stood a lot. After your number is called you go to the desk and give them your name, and go back to find that while you were at the desk someone stole your seat, if you had one. Then you wait until your number is called again and you go to a different desk and pre-pay for your exam. Cash only. Then you wait again until they call your number and you go to a little room and get your vital signs taken. Then you go back to the lobby and wait some more until they finally call your number to see the doctor. We finally got out of there about three hours later and still had to go next door to the lab for blood work and then on to the pharmacy.

2. Doctors wear white coats. 

3. You have to be proactive about your own health (though this is perhaps more true here).

That’s about it.

Differences:
1. The concept of germs and sterility. When the nurses called me in to take my vital signs, they pulled out a digital thermometer and stuck it in my arm pit while they took my blood pressure. Before the thermometer beeped they removed it, recorded the temperature, and placed it right back in its case. Without cleaning it with anything. I could not help but think about the fact that before I got my temperature taken, thirty-five or forty people had also gotten their temperature taken that day. The doctor who did my procedure washed and put gloves on but when he told the nurses to tie his mask on they didn’t know how to do it and he had to instruct them. They got it on really crooked, which was a nice distraction for me while he was approaching my tongue with a sharp cutting tool.

2. Equipment and resources. The doctor did not have the option of a big bright light on an extendable swinging arm attached to the wall or the ceiling. He had an old floor lamp with a nice hot 40 watt bulb which he kept having to ask the nurses to move around until he could see into my mouth. I know the bulb was hot because it was almost touching my eye lids.

3. Lab work. The pathology lab is not on site. You have to take your specimen to the lab yourself. It is in another part of town and we had no clue how to find it so for an extra fee we could have someone take it to the lab for us. We have been told that it is not uncommon for things to get lost in the system. 

4. Payment. Even in the states you have to arrange payment up front, but here you have to pay for everything up front in cash. No money = no doctor.

5. Patient privacy. This has happened at every clinic we have been to, not just CMK. While the nurses were taking my vital signs and asking me questions the doctor was examining someone else in the same room with just a little folding screen between us.