Lurking today and thought I'd jump in:

ita, as someone completely unfamiliar with whatever your situation was, (although it sounded horrible and I'm sorry for what you had to go through), I found your paragraphs in the middle difficult to understand. What is clear is that you got treated poorly, were sent home in pain, Dr. asshole failed to take whatever you said seriously, and you'll be choosing another ER if doctor asshole is on call again.

But I think it would be helpful to throw a few more facts into the naarative like, the time you got there, your specific complaint(s), the pain medicine protocol your specialists have recommended and that has worked in the past, how you tried to convey the protocol to Dr. asshole, the specific ineffectual treatment you finally received and what time you received it, and maybe some examples of the abrasive and dismissive conduct you were shown.

ooh ... back right after I had my stroke, I needed to make a follow-up appointment with the neurologist. In addition to getting my condition checked, I needed to get more medication. I called in August to make an appointment ... the neurologist's secretary offered me an appointment in November. I said I'd be happy to see someone else, but she wouldn't even discuss it. I scheduled it; a week or so later she called back and said the neurologist wouldn't be available until January. I started begging for an appointment with anyone - I was afraid of what would happen if I went without the stroke prevention medication that long. After two weeks of hassling, I finally got to see another neurologist about two days before the meds ran out, and I complained about the problems I'd had getting the appointment. They gave me a nice long prescription for the meds and when I called to get an appointment with a stroke specialist, didn't have any problems getting an appointment.

Speaking of brains- I'm listening to Radio Lab and it's making me feel Sylaresque. Brains are funky and this show's making me want to pick one apart to see how it works.

This woman had a headache, did aerobics because they'd made her feel better last time, had an attack and went to the hospital. When she woke up she had weird memories, like of being a little old man in Vietnam.

Thanks, guys. Every time I try and write it out, I get dizzy again. I can't find the structure for it.

What's a good structure? Summary, play by play, restatement, consequence?

Like...

• I like your hospital
• My last visit sucked and I was treated like shit
• here's how it went down
• here's how it made me feel
• here's what it will change

It's weird, since I don't have action in mind. I just want to be heard.

ita, I think the letter would be best served by starting out stating, "I am writing to complain about the medical care I received at your ER on June 14 by Dr. [Asshole]." Putting your intentions in the first sentence make it explicitly clear to whomever is reading it why your are writing and will, one hopes, make sure it gets routed to and read by the right people as quickly as possible.

Signed,
Works for a bureaucracy

I sign on to the above. The thought that popped into my mind is, has the course agreed on by your regular doctors been written down? If so, and Dr. [Asshole] had any way of getting to it, it makes the situation even more serious.

I do think you need to mention this - the inappropriateness of placing you in that position... but also make the point more clear that he was not listening to the patient and ignoring the patient's medical history.

I second this. You have mentioned elsewhere, or earlier, I think, the specific protocol the specialists want you to follow. I would mention it and maybe some of the details of how you told the dr. to follow the protocol and how he refused.

Also, I think the dr.'s concern (too much narcotic) would normally be justified but clearly wasn't here. So I might say something along the lines of I said this, then he said no, then I told him that I'm not here looking for drugs, but I have a predetermiend course to follow, and then he dismissed me. Oh, and mention that he was treating some kids while talking to you. I think it helps show how dismissive he was towards you.

edited for clarity and I like your suggested outline above.

you might want to add EAT IT! in there somewhere. or maybe that can be on a short note to the Dr in question.

IMEMEMEN - work is kinda making me nauseated
- too many projects hitting at once and not being allowed to pull any of them off the front burners
- co-worker leaving for 1 week vacation
- life stuff unable to push far enough back in mind
- complete mess of a desk
- anxious boss looming around a lot
- stubborn designer trying to exert management control where skills do not exist (time and priority management specifically)

I think you should write the letter, but I'm wondering what recourse the clinic has if a patient complains about a course of treatment-- don't doctors have pretty much complete discretion to determine treatment, particularly if their concern is something like dependence? If that is the case, I would describe the course of treatment that he prescribed that you didn't like but focus also on some of the less discretionary aspects-- he ignored your specialists' advice without reason, he was dismissive, his exam was cursory, he didn't allow your ride to describe (xyz)-- all suggestive of the idea that even if he does have absolute power of his diagnosis/treatment, he was likely working with limited information and made a mistake.

don't doctors have pretty much complete discretion to determine treatment

Not if it's harmful/negligent. ita's medical history clearly shows that she's not an addict trying to score some narcotics, because it shows that standard migraine treatments have failed to work for her, repeatedly.

When other medical professionals have devised a treatment plan that's meant to be carried out by another doctor (meaning, the neurologist and migraine specialist came up with the plan intending for an ER doctor to carry it out), and the doctor ignores that treatment plan, I would call that negligent. I won't go so far as to call it harmful, or malpractice, but it's negligent bullshit that I don't think can be excused under a blanket permission slip granted by "MD" at the end of the doctor's name tag.