The incompetence of doctors and their staff.

**Retmilleo909** · 03-13-07, 06:14 PM

My wife had surgery approximately 10 days ago in an Atlanta hospital and the sutures are ready to come out. They told us at the hospital where the procedure was done, that our family doctor could remove the stitches in about 8-10 days.
So, yesterday I took her to our family physician to have them removed.
He looked at them and said, I can't remove stitches but both my nurses can, so he tells his RN to take the stitches out. She looked at them with fear in her eyes and said, I'm afraid to do it, as I may pull the wrong one and the the whole incision will come apart. There's no way the the wound would fall apart as it's completely healed.
She then told the doctor that she just couldn't do it. There are 3 other doctors and about 8 nurses in the office and he asked all of them if they knew how to remove stitches and all 11-12 admitted they couldn't.
We have a local hospital and someone in the ER could remove the stitches, but to do so she would have to check in as a patient and go through a lot of rigamaroo, then wait her turn in line, in a packed waiting room full of sick, sneezing and coughing people for half a day or more to see a doctor. Also, being that removing stitches doesn't qualify as an emergency, my insurance would pay nothing of the $400-$500 or more hospital and ER doctors fees.
In view of this, I'll now have to fight traffic going to and from Atlanta and probably hang around a medical center all day just to have a few stitches taken out.
What happened to the old family doctor, who could do anything from removing tonsils to treating you for a broken toe?

**conalabu** · 03-13-07, 06:31 PM

Honestly, I have never run into that. I have had my FP do minor surgery on me in his office on two or three occasions with two or three docs. Sounds to me you just got shafted.

**Buttercup** · 03-13-07, 06:34 PM

The general or family practitioner is almost a thing of the past, and that's a shame. There's not enough money in it to satisfy some would-be doctors. A friend of mine is a general practitioner and he's working in an urgent care center that doubles as a regular office. However, he doesn't do anything with obstetrics because the malpractice insurance is so high (he currently pays roughly $8000 a year compared to almost $125,000 a year if he were to include obstetrics).

It's terrible that your wife had to go through all of that just to have stitches removed. I can't believe that no one could do it.

**Rhino** · 03-13-07, 07:08 PM

Jesus, Estada. If you live around here I'll take the damn things out. All you need is scissors and tweezers. Idiots.

**Jenna** · 03-13-07, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Rhino

Jesus, Estada. If you live around here I'll take the damn things out. All you need is scissors and tweezers. Idiots.

You don't even need tweezers--you can just use your horn!

**BEB** · 03-13-07, 08:20 PM

Originally Posted by Rhino

Jesus, Estada. If you live around here I'll take the damn things out. All you need is scissors and tweezers. Idiots.

Nail clippers work good for both snipping and pulling.

What happened to the old family doctor, who could do anything from removing tonsils to treating you for a broken toe?

This guy probably sued him out of business

**markw76** · 03-17-07, 05:10 AM

Sounds pretty lame to me. You put em in, you take em out. Of course, last time, I did my own without going back. When he saw me again he had no complaints about how things looked.

**lewisipso** · 03-17-07, 05:12 AM

Yep. Remove my own.

**foxxymomma50** · 03-17-07, 05:54 AM

Mee too! I also remove stitches from anyone I know who has them. I've been to medical school so everyone I know comes to me for almost anything before they go to the doc. Although...you don't need to go to med school to know how to remove stitches! A 5 year old child could do that for you! Grab some clippers or small scissors and clip away. Be careful not to cut the skin though. You don't want to have to get more and go through the same sh** again!

**dapples** · 03-17-07, 11:42 AM

That is typical these days...sadly, I have far TOO much experience dealing with incompetent health care givers..

A family member recently had to have a skin cancer removed and then plastic sugery to close the wound ....his stitches dissolved...by themselves... BUT the surgeon did do a follow-up and so should have this doctor!

**kjlaw** · 03-17-07, 12:36 PM

But I agree with everyone in reference to taking them out yourself as long as the incision is well healed and shows no signs of infection you can remove them yourself.

**Michelle** · 03-17-07, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by dapples

[B][COLOR="Green"]That is typical these days...sadly, I have far TOO much experience dealing with incompetent health care givers..

Same here. I actually had a doc give me Oxycontin for headaches and a flier on marijuana. Yes, I reported him and the feds took care of him. When I think about it, I could write a book on all the nitwit doctors I've gone too.

Hope your wife is doing well Esteda!

**gozling** · 03-17-07, 03:13 PM

I would have reported this doctor to the AMA and then wrote into their monthly magazine with the fuckers name in it.

It is very easy to remove stitches and this drama queen of a f'ing nurse watches too many friggin movies!

get some small sharp little sissors and tweazers and sterilize both of them. snip and pull. snip and pull...

its a shame she couldnt get the glue job or the stitches that absorb... actually if she waits a bit longer they usually end up breaking up and falling out on their own but that gets sort of gross lol

**CT209** · 03-19-07, 05:27 AM

Yeah- take them out myself as long as I can reach them, otherwise, my wife will take them out.

She took 23 surgical staples out of my back and hip so I didn't have to go back to the doctor.

**markw76** · 03-20-07, 04:30 AM

One important item to never forget:

Never pull the side of the stitch without the knot in it.

The good part is you will only make this mistake once.

**Trojan 42** · 03-20-07, 05:09 AM

So, slightly off topic, how much does Health Insurance cost in the US then?

**BEB** · 03-20-07, 06:04 AM

Originally Posted by Trojan 42

So, slightly off topic, how much does Health Insurance cost in the US then?

Its expensive, yes. So is socialized medicine so many ways.

As a reminder...

**JohnnyReb** · 03-21-07, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by Trojan 42

So, slightly off topic, how much does Health Insurance cost in the US then?

I pay a little over $120 a month for me alone (just health).

**TXCharlie** · 03-21-07, 02:59 AM

I got 3 or 4 stitches in the bend of my index finger, fighting in the man's bathroom once... When I flashed my badge at the "cop" coming in with the gun drawn on me, my finger hit the sharp formica edge of the dividers of the urinal stalls and sliced the underside of it open...

Badge goes flying at the cop, and about a hundred milliseconds later my blood hits her in the face. She lets out a little shriek, jumps back and nearly drops her gun, but shoots me instead - Or at me anyway. I don't think she aimed very well

Luckily not the real thing, but just a scenario we did on "Shoot/Don't Shoot" day. That cost me about $350, since I didn't have my deductable paid.

Then comes the good news: It seems that my finger is in CONSTANT pain even after it healed up - ANd my TRIGGER finger no less, because of two little white swolen areas right where my finger bends, which my doctor surmised may be knots from the sutures that didn't come out because they had a cyst around them.

So he calls in a "finger specialist", who wants to do actual surgery, for about $1500 - I get sticker shock and go home.

One day I noticed one peeling, so I got out my pocket knife. and to my amazement it came off!!! Great!!! - So I start picking at the other one, and it came off too.

All they were was a little blob of dead skin, like a corn - I almost paid $1500 to get two tiny corns removed! I don't know why they hurt so much, but I was glad to see them gone.

I can get my insurance free, but my employeer's cost is like $400/month.

**CelticCop** · 03-21-07, 03:29 AM

Late October of 1999 I got a 3cm cut on my left thumb at the joint... went to the E.R. and got 6 stitches. (This was 2 days before I drove 3200 miles from Maple Valley, WA to King George, VA.) The nurse that did the stiches told me that I could get them taken out almost anywhere for a nominal fee... I was a broke S.O.B, so I took them out myself a week after I got them. Took me 15 minutes with a Baby Swiss Army Knife and a pair of tweezers. That included trimming off the strip of dead skin that overlapped the wound.

My daughter split her scalp on a screw that was hanging out of a piece of playground equipment. She got 3 staples... When we went to have them removed I had to take the puller away from the doctor and do it myself while the doc held my daughter... (she screwed up 3 times trying to take the first one out and actually caused a small tear that I had to tend for 3 days to make sure it didn't get infected) I had no trouble removing any of the 3... How that worked I don't know, as I had had no prior practice with the puller, but the doc said that she used one about once a month or more. Still had to pay $50 to the doc's office.