Dear Fairview Riverside Medical Center:

Here is your grade report on performance from January-July, 2011.

1. Clarity in communication to patients: 'Offensive' and "Vulgar" language need to be more clearly defined. My first offense was in an exam room, where I referred to my penis as my "peter." Why, even when counseled on it, the NP said it was my "private area," so apparently if I'd called my penis a penis I would also have offended that visiting student nurse who had no role in that exam room except to observe. Not to criticize, find fault, judge a patient's words and applying some meaning to it that was offensive. There was no offense. It was a black mark. Staff gets an F.
2. The student nurse had not listened, unaware, because she didn't care enough to ask, why an infected mole would be a concern of mine, and that I'd recently gone through sixteen weeks of IV Antibiotics to control a staph infection from killing me. No, instead, she found reason to take offense at my use of the word, "peter" for "penis." For their indiscretion and mismanagement of such things, because I come from West Texas. I'm 58 years old. I don't know what Politically Correct means in liberal viewpointed Minneapolis. And you won't tell me. You're far more concerned about your power trip of judgment on anyone. Management gets an F.
HR gets an F, in collusion with management's failure.
3. Offensive comments to receptionists? Not so. The women were talking about getting drunk in bars and I made a comment to that effect. There was nothing offensive in MY remarks. There was plenty of offensive, though, in THEIR remarks.
4. Second written offense, same thing. Only, this time, it was the medical assistant who over-reacted, and reacted it was, because she did not listen. She simply lied. Her lie was defended. For months, it was kept from me what had been said about me, as to what I had said. When I was told what I said, I denied saying it. Yet, the female staff is in line with female supervisors: They don't listen. At all. Where are they? What words are they hearing? Is each one having their own schizophrenic conversation inside their heads? They're certainly not listening to the patient.
5. Third written offense, same thing. Oh, your hair is curly like what's her name. Ok, cool. Oh, cool, you use a triangle to diagram the pelvic area. Ooops, that's offensive, too. Pelvic area, which I'd thought to be a medical term, not so, anymore. It's offensive and vulgar to say that aloud. That's the basis of the third complaint.
6. So, three complaints, medical service denied. Thanks. Because I found more professional medical people than could only be a fantasy for staff at Fairview Riverside. Why, the man at the pain clinic even did steroid shots into my ribcage WITH Fluoroscopy. The doctor at Riverside just guessed at it, without fluoro. It's un-nerving to hear a doctor say, "Gosh, I hope I did not puncture the lung with that shot." M.D. Steroid shot "specialist" gets an F grade for incompetence and antiquated procedure.
7. Serving my needs quickly and efficiently? No. Grade is F. For one, I'd been in chronic pain for years, and yet, was told to wait for care another 90 days. When finally seeing the incompetent female doctor, the one who eventually denied medical service at all...she made no referral to the PT clinic for pain management. She prescribed the wrong dosage of one medication. Then, increased it by one third more. Why, the clinic's pharmacist woman told me she never had to check up on the meds prescribed by "Susan." She should have. The meds were wrongly prescribed. Lidoderm patches were wrongly prescribed. Pain Physician without Pain specialization, no, an internist, grade of F, as in Incompetent.
8. Something's wrong. You've got an extensive number of people who exist in their own self-created misery, and misery loves company. That's what these woman all did to me. Share the misery, the sadness of life. Their lives, so sad, so burdened by having a job in health care around sick people. So much in misery, not by their choice, but by the actions of the rest of the world being always against them. Misery loves company. They sought to create it. For a time, they did. So, attitude at clinic, F.
Employee Attitude Grade: Judgment A+ ; Condemnation: A+; Power Tripping Pseudo Feminist Liars as Employees: A+.
9. Specialists, both doctors, grade of F. Further, an F for referring me to plastic surgeons who told me nothing could be done, wasting a day of mine on nothing at all. And a grade of F for threatening to cause a pneumothorax with guesswork in shooting shots into the ribcage.
10. Pharmacy at Riverside? A+ Positive Attitude. Friendly Attitude. Happy Attitude. Pleasant Greeting always. Efficient service. Recognized me, called me by name, smiled at me, enjoyed my sense of humor in spite of all my medical strife of an absessed leg, a surgically scarred ribcage, five surgeries in short order, several hospital stays, constant chronic pain for years, never ending, never resolved, never helped by much of anything. In person, by phone, by mail, Fairview Riverside Pharmacy gets an A+....How about that? They are almost always slam bam busy. A 180 from either the pain clinic or the primary health clinic. Slow and steady paced. Rarely anyone else in the waiting room. I learned why. The other departments could all take a lesson from the Pharmacy people. The other departments could weed out people who don't fit with the professionalism they obviously and cheerfully display, each day. Customer service. Caring about the customer. Caring about the other person, giving them leeway, because, after all, they're not feeling well like you are, not at all, in spite of your whining that you have a headache or you twisted your ankle last year and it still hurts sometimes. No, people who are seriously ill, have been seriously ill, take that into consideration before judging them.
11. If Life could be Fair, then, the reverse would hold true. Each person who was offensive to me gets all the same, to gain that empathy of "I know exactly how you feel," because they're definitely NOT "getting it." Not to neglect to include the psych department, where no goals were ever clearly defined, there was a lot of babble and chit chat and seemingly, no progress, at all. Just chit chat. Chit. And, chat. Psych is friendly and personable. One therapist I met, not mine, would have been better for me, but no, not her. Instead, I got what I got, and it wasn't much to get. F.
12. I heard from a few sources the pain clinic at Fairview Riverside was to close within a year or so. That's how many other complaints were filed about them. No wonder, in my experience. Unfriendly. Incompetent. Uncooperative. And, frankly, just plain stupid. Psychologist, especially, what a fool that mortal be. The Psychiatrist I met briefly at the clinic? Not much better, just a more visible neurotic.
Overall experience is a D-, only because the time involved at the pharmacy (with its A+) was a small percentage of the total time at anything Fairview Riverside.
Thank you for denying me services. I got better service through an Allina Clinic for general physician, plus a bone density scan there. I got better knowledge and care through the MAPS Pain Clinic. Friendly treatment with women who have a sense of humor about life and themselves. What your female Misery workers at Fairview Riverside have failed to grasp, for they have failed to work at it, to get there. They have The Entitlement Mentality. It's okay to over-react. Okay to be "hyper-sensitive." It's okay to lie. And allow that and support that lie, because it's the female's version, and only she can be believed. Although it is obviously a lie without substantiation. Support, by the M.D., the female incompetent who can't read a chart or prescribe p.t. in her own pain clinic. Support for the lie, by the Pain Clinic Psychologist, who went rapidly downhill from positive attitude to negative, judgmental and simply evil by the third encounter. Sorry, but true. Truly, a sorry performance. So often done by those who are to help with mental issues. Instead, the reverse was true. Sad and Sorry.

I'd suggest boosting your self protection from medical malpractice lawsuits, but then, that's just my experience talking about why that could be a good idea.