Hippocratic Oaf: Finding a Doctor With Google

MY FEAR OF DOCTORS hits all five senses.

At the sight of needles, I start looking for the nearest vomit venue. The smell of hospitals and medical offices (Mr. Clean + urine) makes my skin crawl. The phony earnestness in a nurse or doctor's voice, the taste of a plastic thermometer, the touch of cold stethoscope against bare back ... shudder.

Another thing I'm skittish about is change.

I like my comfort and I like routine, too, but then I stepped out of my career comfort zone and accepted a brand new job, with brand new health insurance. Then HR informed me that I needed to choose a new doctor.

Um, what?

For someone who has "high maintenance" stamped all over her medical record, this is no easy task.

My former doctor didn't mind my spontaneous fits of crying and incessant questions about the terminal illnesses I diagnosed myself as having via WebMD. Dr. Nicewoman (I never knew her real name) even supplied me with a sympathetic smile and a barf bag before each checkup. Now that she can't take my new health insurance, I have to pick a new one from a list of faceless names? Yes, HR said, and you have to pick one in an hour so Patricia in HR can pick her kids up by 4 p.m.

Clearly Patricia, her impatient kids and my new job aren't aware of the situation they have just placed me in.

So with a long list of names in front of me, I turned to a medically fearful girl's best friend: Google.

Doing search after search, I narrowed down the list of doctors using two bits of logic:

» I chose doctors whose names conjured previous personal connections.

Or

» I picked names because they sounded like they were attached to overly tolerant, nonjudgmental human beings with more medical knowledge than anybody in the universe.

Here were the four finalists:

» Nana Adu-Amankwa, MD: When I skinned my knee as a kid, my Nana, a 73-year-old British woman, could whip up a batch of tea and biscuits in world-record time. Could Nana Adu-Amankwa have the same soothing effect as my English grandma? All Google told me is that she went to Yale. And she speaks Spanish. But look — she's on Facebook! How hip! At least she'll be warned when my Facebook status reads: "Robyn is checking her scalp for tumors." This Nana was a definite possibility.

» Nathaniel Beers, MD: Why did I choose Nate Beers? Because I choose beer as my medicinal companion many, many nights of the week. But the last thing I want is a doc who'll give me a lecture on liver maintenance and not accept me for the perpetually tipsy social person that I am. He also wrote an article titled "Managing Temper Tantrums." Enough said.

» Dafina Good, MD vs Brian Fine, MD: This is a toughie. The word "good" implies humble, pleasant, possessing desirable qualities — all which I would want in a doctor. But "fine" says elegant, exceptional, distinguished. I didn't find much on Dafina, but Google churned up an article titled "The Things I See," which Brian Fine wrote about working on Christmas Day (sniff). It's evident by his writing style that Brian is truly a sympathetic, gentle, cheesy Care Bear of a doc:

We are on holiday schedule, so this marks my third day in 5 that I will arrive to the hospital and not leave until the next day. I manage a good mood, though, mostly because it would be audacious to allow myself self-pity in this setting. I sing on the way to work ...

It's hard not to get misty eyed when Dr. Fine describes receiving Christmas gifts donated to the hospital and his encounter with a cherub-faced sick baby.

I love presents, too. I rip the paper from one and hand a rattle to a gabbling, googling 9-month-old whose wide eyes suggest an awareness of the day. She coos and smiles, wrinkling the tape on her cheek that holds the feeding tube in place.

OK, I found my Hippocrates.

Dafina's out. Beers I'd rather chug than take my vitals. Nana, I don't care if you have more than 200 friends on Facebook. Dr. Brian Fine, master of medical melodramatic prose? I choose you.

Now, where's my barf bag?

Written by Express contributor Robyn Mincher

Posted By Express at 1:24 PM on September 10, 2008 Tagged in Life & Stuff

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