1 Comments on Comments 1

Posted on May 21, 2012 by David Beck

I have received a comment recently which starts with:-

I think it comes from a doctor, although it’s not clear – it’s author has done everything possible to remain completely anonymous. (Even the email address he or she has used doesn’t work.)

All of the doctors I use have email addresses, (to a certain extent by good luck rather than good management, although I wouldn’t now start using a doctor who didn’t have an email address readily available,) and there are times when they are extremely useful to me, and I believe, to them. Let me give you an example – and I could give you lots.

Lately, for various reasons, I have been seeing my heart specialist every 2 or 3 months, and, at present, I have an appointment to see him on 19 Jun 2012. But in the last 24-48 hours there have been some developments that may or may not be significant. I can email him, briefly describe what is happening, and ask him, “Do you think I need to see you before 19 Jun or not?” and I know I will get an answer from him that will take no more than 60 seconds for him to compose and send, that will help me greatly, and in a sense help him, as he seeks to manage my condition.

To me, to say that we don’t need emails for patients to manage their relationships with their doctors, and for doctors to manage their relationships with their patients, is so last century it’s not funny? What do you think?

Talk of me being too “lazy or cheap …… to pay for a formal consult” is not really the point.

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1.1 Dr Lydia Graham GP Bondi Junction 1.1

Posted on May 21, 2012 by David Beck

An important update today on our post on Dr Lydia Graham.

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15 Bits and Pieces 15

Posted on May 19, 2012 by David Beck

I’ve now been working quite hard on this blog and it’s associated website for more than 4 years. Let me remind you that, if you think I might have gathered any information on specific doctors, medical centres, hospitals etc during those 4 years that might be useful to you, simply Google “MQ&A XXXX” where “XXXX” is the name of a doctor etc you may be interested in. Unfortunately, even after 4 years, there is probably a less than 1% chance that your search will turn up anything – but it’s going to take you less than 20 seconds to find out.

I recently got a really nasty email – I get these from time to time – in which I was told, “Go out and get yourself a decent job”. I have to say that I’ve had various jobs in my long life, including running a legal practice with 32 employees, and being the CEO of a multi million dollar home building company – but I’ve never felt I had a more decent job than this one I’m doing in my retirement – helping people do the “homework” that might help them to avoid seeing some of the really shocking doctors that are around and to end up consulting only superb doctors.

(Why is that those who send these really nasty emails go to such great lengths to remain totally anonymous – even the email addresses they use don’t work.)

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14 Bits and Pieces 14

Posted on May 17, 2012 by David Beck

I continue to find a strong correlation between doctors who get good ratings and doctors who have ordinary email addresses readily available, or alternatively,  between doctors who get bad ratings and doctors who don’t have an ordinary email addresses readily available. There are exceptions, of course, but I find the extent of this correlation quite remarkable. This morning, for instance, I came across a really bad rating for a doctor, and I almost knew that he wouldn’t have an ordinary email address readily available. And sure enough, when I rang his rooms, (as I often do, when I can’t find an email address on the net,) and asked the question, “Does Dr XXXX have an email address for his patients?” it turned out that he didn’t.

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2 Dr Joseph Tiong Sydney CBD & Kariong 2

Posted on May 16, 2012 by David Beck

Further to my previous post on Dr Tiong three things arise from the Dr Tiong story that I find really scary.

Firstly, since the 5 Apr 2012, when the NSW Medical Tribinal made the decision that Dr Tiong should “be restricted from the practice of cosmetic surgery for six months”, nothing about this has appeared on his website, or so it seems to your blogger – I sent him an email yesterday, asking:-

This one fact alone, in the absence of a satisfactory response to this email, would seem to indicate that Dr Tiong is hardly the honest, transparent and up-front sort of doctor it’s best to deal with.

Secondly, the Dr Tiong conduct that made the Medical Tribunal decide to order Dr Tiong to stop practicing cosmetic surgery basically happened in 2007, yet it was well into 2012 before there was any way – through a media release – that the NSW public could know about this, if we were to rely on the NSW health system in general and the HCCC in particular.

So for more than 4 years, Dr Tiong’s patients were dealing with a doctor who the Medical Tribunal considered had conducted himself so poorly that they needed to order him to stop practicing for 6 months, without knowing this in any official sort of way.

No wonder rating agencies like RateMDs.com and plasticsurgeryforum.com.au are springing up and growing in popularity, with the immediacy they offer.

Thirdly, and this is the thing I find most scary, probably, despite the fact that he has been ordered to stop practicing  plastic surgery for six months, and despite the fact that there is all this information on the HCCC’s website, the Medical Council’s website and AHPRA’s website, (which isn’t always so, but it is on this occasion,) it’s probably business as usual for Dr Tiong! Not enough people are doing their homework before they consult doctors.

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16.1 The Health Care Complaints Commission 16.1

Posted on May 13, 2012 by David Beck

Click here for a 13 May 2012 update on my post on making a complaint to the Health Care Complaints Commission about Dr Laith Barnouti’s threat to have your blogger scheduled under the Mental Health Act.

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1 Dr Brian Zeman Rehabilitation Medicine Ryde 1

Posted on May 7, 2012 by David Beck

For information on Dr Zeman, click here.

It’s hard to imagine a worse rating for someone who’s supposed to help with pain and rehabilitation than the rating Dr Zeman gets on the RateMDs.com website.

We sent an email today to his employers asking:-

I don’t expect a reply – although I might get a surprise. The last thing such organisations seem to be interested in is how things are working out with doctors at the “coalface”. Perhaps they don’t care. Perhaps they don’t know what to do. Whatever it is, you and I are left with the task of dealing with it and trying to sort it out.

To locate information on our blog and website on other Sydney doctors, click here.

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13 Bits and Pieces 13

Posted on May 5, 2012 by David Beck

There are doctors you wouldn’t want treating your dog, and others who are superb in every way. Information that might help you and your loved ones to avoid seeing the former, and only see the latter, is obviously incredibly useful – life and death stuff at times. How to use modern technology to share such information without being sued off the face of the earth for defamation – that is the question! It’s what this blog and it’s associated website is all about.

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16 The Health Care Complaints Commission 16

Posted on May 5, 2012 by David Beck

You’d think that the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission would have some way of dealing with a doctor who threatens a person who has never had even a hint of a mental health problem in his life that he will use his powers as a doctor to “schedule” them under the “Mental Health Act 2007″ to stop him doing something of which he didn’t approve.

We’ll see.

Yesterday, on 4 May 2012, I sent an email to Kieran Pehm, the Health Care Complaints Commissioner, (who, over many years, I’ve found to be completely and utterly useless,) saying:-

I hadn’t/haven’t said anything less than complimentary about Dr Barnouti myself – just pointed out that if you do searches on the internet, you will find some ratings, comments, etc on him that are very uncomplimentary indeed.

I wouldn’t be holding my breath hoping for a satisfactory outcome to this, but I’ll keep you informed. My guess is that, in the end, Kieran Pehm will decide that doctors in NSW threatening people that they will use their powers as a doctor to have them locked up in a mental institution when they have no basis whatsoever for doing this, is just one of those things – that’s if he is interested at all!

A 13 May 2012 update: I did get an email from the Health Care Complaints Commission on 10 May 2012. It said, “I am responding to your enquiry, concerning your statement that Dr Laith Barnouti has threatened to schedule you under the Mental Health Act 2007 if you continue to refer to him on the internet”, and that I needed to fill in a form – an online form, if this suited me best. So I have just submitted my complaint in this form.

This matter, of course, is not about Dr Barnouti – it’s about the Health Care Complaints Commission.

(I think that those who have read this blog – and seen that if you criticise Dr Barnouti in any way he might threaten to use his powers as a doctor to have you retained in a mental institution – might have already made up their mind not to use him.)

It’s about whether making a complaint to the HCCC will result in a wider audience being made aware of what Dr Barnouti is like. It’s about whether the HCCC will do anything useful at all.

We’ll see what happens next.

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2 Obtaining copies of Medical Records (Clinical Notes) from doctors 2

Posted on May 4, 2012 by David Beck

Yesterday I sent an email to Dr Jennifer Sandbach asking:-

I sent it to her at Annandale Eye Care where she now practices – when I saw her in 2010 I saw her at the Parramatta rooms of Personal Eyes.

Today I got an email from the Practice Manager at Annandale Eye Care which included:-

As an email, it’s all you could ever want, in the circumstances – the sort of email you’d always want to get from a doctor, (or his or her Practice Manager,) that you were thinking of using.

How things would have been if I had seen Dr Sandbach at Annandale Eye Care remains to be seen. In 2010 I always found her remarkably uncommunicative – as well as claiming a qualification she didn’t have! The email address on her card didn’t work, (!!!???,) and emails I sent to the email address that the receptionists at Personal Eyes assured me would work, were never even acknowledged.

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