CrackerJack, MD

I spent a wonderful Saturday evening in the ER, with my darling husband. He hit his thumb while I was at the gym, and by 11pm or so the pain and swelling looked like it might need some attention. I finally convinced him to go in, at least to make sure nothing was broken. It was a slow night, we were seen fairly quickly, by ER standards. I'd been to the ER on post before, with Madison, and saw a military doc. Tonight we were seen by a civilain "doctor". He was a licensed MD, but our interaction didn't show it.

"Tell me what happened. **poke, twist, tap** Does that hurt there? Can you move this? OK, we'll get some XRays"

30 seconds, at most, and he left. We went to Xray, where the tech screwed up, and we had to make a second trip. After "Take 2" in Xray, we returned to the exam room. Finally some enlisted guy comes in, searches around for some stuff, mentions something to a nurse about splinting. He tells Nate it's going to be splinted. I ask if the doctor is going to come in and give us a DX, and Guy shuffles about, mumbles something about the doc coming back, and tells us HE thinks it's just a sprain, he didn't notice anything on the XRay, but the doc will tell us more. The nurse pokes his head in, and Guy tells him N is ready to be discharged, as soon as he's splinted. Again, I ask Nurse and Guy if the DOCTOR will at least be making an appearance to give us any information. It's now EMPTY in the ER, but the doc can't take 10 more seconds to talk to us?! Of course, weshould be happy with the 30 seconds he already gave us!! Finally, N is splinted, and throughly embarassed by my tantrum, and we are signed out. We walk past the nurse's little control room, and see the great doctor sleeping in a chair. He was too busy SLEEPING to handle his patients. I was (and still am) furious. I fully intend on clalling the OIC (officer in charge) of the ER on Tuesday. If this is the kind of patient care YOUR tax dollars and my husband's hard work have earned us, it's sorely lacking. I understand priority, and that N's injury was a minor one, but we were pushed out the door without any explaination, very minimal after care instructions, pretty much nothing, when we were the only ones in the place. Not acceptable. I told N he wouldn't accept such treatment for our kids, and that means he shouldn't accept it for himself. So, I'm done ranting, and maybe I'm overreacting, but I really think this was just a shitty way to treat patients. The good news is N should be just fine in a couple days.