Mrs. Parent: "Hi. My 13 year old son needs to see a neurologist."
Mary: "I'm sorry. Dr. Grumpy doesn't see anyone under 18."
Mrs. Parent: "Oh... But we'd heard such good things about him, too."
Mary: "I'm sorry. We recommend Pediatric Neurology, Inc."
Mrs. Parent: "Okay. But when my son turns 18, can he see Dr. Grumpy then?"
Mary: "Of course."
Mrs. Parent: "Can I make that appointment now?"
21 comments:
Just curious, why the cut off age of 18?
Just the standard line between pediatric and adult medicine.
I don't practice pediatric neurology, and don't want to.
Gotta have a cut-off somewhere. I use 18.
What reason(s) would someone possibly want to make an appointment that early (for that late)? Genetic disease? Prediagnosing Pick's or Parkinson's? Baseline neurological? Epilepsy? What else do you 'do', Dr. Grumpy?
I pull my hair out a lot. The ones that are left.
So they didn't give you the "But my son is as tall as an adult! And quite mature for his age!" schpeal?
I have enough trouble remembering my haircut appointments that I schedule a week ahead of time... I can't imagine scheduling an appointment five YEARS in advance!
talk about no sense of urgency.... what's a few more years of seizing around on the floor? You MUST be good for them to want to wait.
Man, that kid is going to have the most exciting 18th birthday EVER.
I can hear it now: Hey, Son, now that you've turned 18, guess what we're going to do today? We're going to go see Dr. Grumpy!
Just what every 18 year old wants for his birthday! :-)
(Don't worry, Doc, I'm a lot older than 18 and would rather see you than my neurologist, although there's nothing wrong with her.)
Mrs. Parent: "Oh... But we'd heard such good things about his blog, too."
If the patient is 17 or 18, it would really suck seeing a pediatric neurologist and to be in a room decorated with elephants and clowns, while lying on an exam table too short for him....
Some things are just worth waiting for.
Seeing Grumpy would be an excellent coming of age ceremony!
are you kidding me?
but I guess it should be a compliment to you that a mom heard so many good things about you and wants to schedule a neurology appointment with you in XX years!
18???
Lot of peds around here stop seeing kids when they are teens.
Seriously....13 is young...
But the 16-17 years old could use you. :)
You should be all proud and stuff because you're just that popular!
Eh, take it as a compliment and move on.
I don't know about pediatric specialists, but the regular pediatricians here stop seeing you at 16. Though they make exceptions for special needs children.
I know, you want to dodge the glorious job of dealing with the parents. You hope at 18, mommy and daddy won't be in the exam room.
You have enough weirdness without that.
LD50 Rat
Dr Grumpy, it's good that you see patients at age 18. I had a 19 year old patient whose pediatric neurologist stopped seeing her. Unfortunately, many of the adult neurologists wouldn't see anyone under 21. This was several years ago. I think I eventually found someone to take her.
Random: My bff had trigeminal neuralgia that started age 16 (quite rare to have it start that early) and the pediatric neurologist didn't know what the problem was...she was diagnosed at age 18 when she went to the adult one. Sad!
hehehe...
I see you are such a sought after doctor.
Gotta get on those waiting lists as early as possible.
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