Mom in in assisted living now, and I(and sometimes my sister, but mostly I) am in charge of her health care. I have had to get up to speed about all the different types of doctors she needs.
1. Nurse Practitioner. She sees her at the facility on a bi-weekly basis, or more often if she is having issues. Unfortunately, in our case, she has misdiagnosed her three times resulting in unnecessary procedures and delays in receiving the treatment she actually needs. We have a new NP as of this week, though. Fingers crossed.
2. Dermatologist. Everyone knows they are for skin, but also skin diseases including auto-immune disorders that cause ulcers to develop on the skin.
3. Neurologist. He diagnosed her frontotemporal dementia. She was taking a drug that could possibly slow the progression, but I don't think there is much success with it.
4. Orthopedic Surgeon. He did her hip fracture surgery.
5. Orthopedic spine surgeon. He evaluated her compression fractures and curvature of the spine.
6. Rheumatologist. This is an internist who specializes in arthritis and other bone diseases. I need to make an appointment for her to see this type of doctor as she has severe osteoporosis.
7. Pain Management Specialist - This is such a broad term. They aren't necessarily orthopedic doctors or even internists. They can supposedly treat multiple types of pain, but she didn't get any relief from the one we saw.
8. Wound Care. Before we saw the dermatologist, we saw a two wound care specialists due to the ulcers she was developing on the skin. They tried, but they didn't offer much help.
9. Vascular Surgeon. Sometimes the veins and arteries are the reason a person develops ulcers on the skin. She had two procedures to clean out her arteries and veins.
11. Surgical Oncologist. She had two surgeries, one for breast cancer and one for lung cancer.
12. Geriatric Psychiatrist. We may need this doctor as her dementia worsens.
Whew! I'm really tired of having to see so many different types of doctors. I wish one person could do it all.
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Unfortunately, the specialties only add problems. While one person really couldn't do it all - it would be nice if we had a more holistic outlook on the person as a whole. The cardiologist may not care if you have foot pain, but perhaps he should.
ReplyDeleteA really good GP (general practitioner) is supposed to help with coordinating care between all of these specialists. It's not easy to find a good one of those.
ReplyDeleteThat sure is a lot of different doctors to have to see!
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