Over-Specialised Drones

My last couple of hospital appointments have left me wondering whether my consultants, and presumably consultants in general, might be becoming a teensy tad of a bit over-specialized. 

When I saw Doctor B a couple of months ago he queried why I had been sent to see him, a shoulder specialist, when I actually had a neck problem. As I had to remind him, with everything manifesting it as shoulder and arm pain we didn’t know it was a neck problem until he’d diagnosed it as one – a diagnosis he had repeated only a couple of minutes before. Do try to keep up, Doctor! This was the same appointment that featured the confidence-inspiring:

Doctor B: Does Jenny do necks?

Nurse: Um, I think so….

Doctor B: We’ll send you to see her, then.

What happened to that referral I don’t know, and I know the paperwork existed because it was in my hand at one point, but I have been waiting for a follow-up appointment with Doctor B. Last week, after the disruption caused by the snow, I had a phone call from the hospital saying they were putting on an extra clinic and could I do an appointment in the morning?

 So next morning I was there bright and early (having skirted the two week old puddle of black ice cunningly left ungritted in the middle of the disabled parking -- I had to wonder if they were trying to drum up extra business?), but strangely none of the treatment room doors showed any sign of Doctor B’s nameplate. So I waited, and I waited, and a suspiciously precise 30 minutes after my appointment was due I was called in, to see Doctor C. I had never met Doctor C before, he had never met me, but to give the man his due he did a thorough job of taking me through the scans of my c-spine and listened when I explained that, because I walk with crutches, anything affecting the use of my arms is even more of a problem than it usually is and it is that combination of symptoms and mobility that concerns me. I seemed to make as much progress in 5 minutes with him as in three or four appointments with Doctor B. Unfortunately that led us into the following:

Doctor C: So what you really need is someone to look at the top and bottom of your spine at the same time.

Me: Yes, exactly. That’s what I have been trying to get people to understand for the last year.

Doctor C: Unfortunately we don’t have anyone here who can do that. 

Aargh! This is the Orthopaedics and Rheumatology department of a hospital serving nearly a quarter of a million people, and they don’t have anyone capable of looking at the entire spine? I’ve been sent back to my GP to ask for a referral to a spinal surgeon, not because I need surgery, but because no one else is apparently capable of looking at the entire spine at once. I couldn’t help noticing the board proudly announcing the specialities of the Orthopaedics and Rheumatology staff as I walked out: Doctor A: Knees, Doctor B: Shoulders, and so on, and it is as well that we have people who can focus on these areas, but somewhere along the line, the idea of treating ‘the whole patient’ seems to have slipped quietly overboard.

You see what I mean about over-specialized drones?