In the move to Los Angeles, I had to find a new Primary Care Physician. A friend of mine recommended his doctor, so I decided to try him. Now, I am a firm believer in doctor shopping. If I'm not comfortable with a doctor, for whatever reason, I will definitely go see another doctor the next time I need an appointment. I personally pay too much for healthcare to receive poor treatment and feel uncomfortable speaking about my body and my health for someone who is there to provide for my care. I do my research online on my insurance company website, as well as Google searching, the whole enchilada.
Also, I believe in finding someone who specializes in the areas of my greatest potential concern (immunology and virology) as well a connection to a world class hospital (I LOVE Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, but UCLA has a great hospital as well). I take my doctor shopping very seriously. For me, it's an interview.....do I feel comfortable naked in front of you talking about my body? Can I talk to you openly about gay health issues? What are your offices, facilities, and medical equipment like? Do you read the latest medical journals, go to medical conventions? It's important to be as upfront and honest as possible with your doctor and see how you feel about him/her.
With my new doctor, everything checked out AOK on the prelist, and now it was time to meet the doctor. The first thing he did was take an electronic medical history. This was my first time with an EMR (Electronic Medical Record), and I didn't know what to expect. Turns out, it's no big deal. Instead of the doctor sitting in front of you and writing everything down in the familiar manilla folder with black lined white paper, he simply sat at a computer and took my medical history. What might be off putting to some people, but wasn't for me, is that the doctor never looks at you while he's taking your medical history. He sat directly across from me, but was sideways so I couldn't read the monitor or see what he was typing while he was taking my history. It was no big deal, and actually kinda cool. Then we had a 45 minute conversation about my health history: What did I eat for foods? How many meals do I eat? What type of foods do I buy? Do I cook for myself? Did I workout or exercise? How often? Which types of exercises and for what result? What is my family's medical history? We didn't just talk about medicine, we talked about what I put into my body, how I treat my body, and what areas I'm concerned about relating to my family medical history.
We talked and after our medical conversation he basically told me that I was a good patient for him (little did I know I was also being interviewed). My new doctor said that his philosphy in medicine was preventative care. Like me, he had also lived in Miami, but during the go-go heyday partying of the late 90's. He told me how he was tired of seeing so many patients of his in Miami basically run their bodies into the ground (too much partying, too many drugs, not enough care about health, eating right, diet or exercise). He then told me that he considered leaving medicine altogether and go back to school and get his PHD in psychology and become a therapist and try to help people that way. (Only in LA do you have trained doctors who have the luxury to decide to leave medicine and oh, I don't know, get yet another masters and/or doctorate degree and just start a new, lucrative career they can be great at and make a lot of money in. Every so often I think I'm smart and then I run into someone like my new doctor and I get a huge reality check into what true intelligence really is). Instead he decided to move to Los Angeles, where he thought people actually cared about and wanted to take care of their bodies. He's been here ever since. He told me that I eat the right foods, I'm taking concrete steps to avoid potential family history problems (less salt intake), sleeping well, taking great care of my sexual health, and getting lots of great exercise with positive results. I'm getting a bit older now, so more areas need to be checked for potential cancers, but that's all a part of getting old.
At the end of our conversation, I was quite satisfied with the EMR, and he later emailed my prescritions to the pharmacy downstairs for me to pick up as I left. I like this electronic medical records and seeing the power of the internet come into the medical field.
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