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in reply to @zach8051 Thank you for this response. I suppose I could have asked if I needed "assistance" for the appointment, IF I thought that the doctor would not remove his mask. Because there are currently no masking rules in place, presently, I was not prepared for the disrespect this doctor showed me. Even if there had been mask restrictions in place, my request for his to remove his mask, while I placed a mask on my own face, was not an "unreasonable" request according to Sutter's Code of Conduct. In the alternative, the doctor could have raised his voice so that I could better understand him. He also could have offered to write things down on paper for me. He is the professional, I am the patient and I believe he has a higher standard of care when he is treating someone who is "disabled." I do not identify myself as "disabled" but am "hearing impaired." Also, prior to going to any "new" physician, the physician is required to know enough about my health prior to the appointment, and I had completed a questionnaire months ago outlining not only my need to see the dermatologist, but also documenting as much as my medical history as I could on the form I was sent prior to the exam.
In the RARE event that I ever see this guy again, I will simply revert to ALS of which I am very proficient, having learned as a result of a friend who lost her hearing. I have also had a "hearing dog" which died last year, and she too knew many "signs." In any event, I have to disagree with your analysis of my experience, and that is okay.
I spent several hours at Sutter just yesterday and there was not one clinician wearing a mask, with the exception of the phlebotomist, because I had to hand her some specimen containers.
I am aware of many "apps" but not all of them are a good fit for me. In fact, during COVID my hearing aid broke, and I was without a hearing aid for quite a long time before I met a woman named Betty who owns Avalon Hearing Aid Center in Sacramento where I live. If you are interested in seeing her or learning more about the deaf and hard of hearing, I suggest that you watch a program on YouTube, "The Power of Silence." It is a remarkable 30 minute film about the difficulties people like us have when trying to communicate, and I attended the showing of this film with Betty at the local public broadcasting studio. Betty has a program in which she "adopts" those who cannot otherwise afford a brand new high tech hearing aid like the one my sister has, and she sells refurbished hearing aids to those like me at a very reasonable price. If not for Betty, I would still be without a hearing aid, and I am very grateful to have met her via my sister who refused to help me out.
I editing a large part of my experience when I initially arrived at the dermatology office because I did not feel it was important in terms of my "overall" experience; however, suffice to say that after I told my PCP about this doctor, he said to me: "Did you report him. That is terrible."
The doctor was an arrogant person to say the least, and I do not feel I did the wrong thing by giving him all zeros.
I think it is great that you are an advocate, or rather teach others to advocate for themselves. As you are new to this platform, you don't know a lot about me or the medical conditions I have or the advocating I have had to do just to get to the right specialist. In fact, if not for this platform I probably never would have gotten the nerve to advocate for myself, and many of the mentors know this about me.
I commend your work, as it is very important for one to learn to advocate for themselves, as I do. If I have offended you in some manner with this response, it was not my intent, but admittedly it did strike a nerve.
Replies to "in reply to @zach8051 Thank you for this response. I suppose I could have asked if..."
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I certainly didn’t mean to strike a nerve, & I’m absolutely not offended, but when you spend your career helping others learn to advocate for their needs, I couldn’t resist commenting. While I’m a teacher of blind students, you may remember from my post that I’m also hard of hearing. I have had to learn to advocate for my own hearing needs, which include when communicating in medical settings, or in other situations where understanding information is critical.
You’re right that, even if there were no mask restrictions in place, we have no idea if your doctor was just getting over covid/had a bad cold/etc. & simply did not want to remove his mask. He may not have even thought of raising his voice or writing information down. That’s where self-advocacy comes in! We need to be the ones to ask for what we need! And if one strategy doesn’t work for us in a given situation, we need to feel confident enough to ask for the communication partner to try something else.
Yes! I absolutely agree with you…with all of the paperwork & questionnaires that we fill out for medical appointments, wouldn’t it be great if all doctors could remember our needs? Unfortunately, I’ve found that’s not always the case. Just a couple of weeks ago when I arrived for an appointment with a new doctor, I asked the receptionist to make a note on the top of my chart that I was hard of hearing. I then took a highlighter out of my bag & asked if she would highlight that in pink so the dr. couldn’t help but see it as soon as she looked at my chart. It must have worked, because the first thing the Dr. asked me was, “How can I best communicate with you today?” Wow! I realize that might not be the norm, but I can’t help but think that the pink highlighter around “Patient is hard of hearing” on the top of my chart had something to do with getting my appointment off on the right foot!
I believe I know the video that you’re referring to, & it is a good one! I’ll check later to be sure, & if the one you mentioned to is different than the one I’m thinking of, I’ll definitely watch it!
You’re absolutely right that I don’t know you, except for what I saw in your profile, but in your initial post you specifically asked “I wonder how others deal with this sort of thing” with regard to having difficulty understanding people who are wearing masks & I was simply giving a variety of options to improve communication, masks or no masks. Not everyone is aware of the variety of phone apps or how to suggest specific strategies to their communication partner who may have no idea what would be helpful to us in a given situation. Perhaps I simply missed the self-advocacy strategies that you used during your appointment when you wrote your initial post!