My Cat Taught me about Doctors and Protocols

If you had asked me what cats can teach me about healthcare a year ago, I would have answered, probably nothing. Well, live and learn. My daughter’s cat has just taught me a couple major lessons about healthcare. Who would have thought cat-sitting could lead to valuable knowledge about how doctors prescribe drugs? Here’s Jack: 2012 04 26 Jack Jack is a good cat. He knows how to relax, and is definitely not anxious about things: 2012 07 13 Jack 003 Jack is a rescue cat. Something bad involving men wearing boots must have happened to him in his early days, because he gets really scared and is desperate to get away from any man wearing boots. Jack sets up the learning environment A few weeks ago we were cat-sitting him. He had been outside for too long; workers came onto our property to work on an extended project. It was getting dark. Jack wasn’t responding to the usual “come home” inducements. I spotted him hunched down in a hiding spot intensely watching the workers. I went to him. He was too scared to follow me home, since that would bring him out of his hiding place and closer to the scary men. So I picked him up. He got really scared. He scratched and bit my hand pretty well. I managed to hold onto him and get him into the house. Now that he was safe, he was OK, and I just had to treat my badly hurt and bleeding hand, which I did with a thorough wash and bandaging. First Lesson: Doctors, prescribing and protocols By the next day my hand had swollen up pretty badly. I got an appointment with my primary care doctor. I provided all the details. She put in an order for antibiotics in case the swelling and redness continued. It did, and I filled the order. I took it as directed, and after 5 days there was still lots of pain and swelling. So she gave me a different kind of antibiotic, which was supposed to cover the kinds of things the first one doesn’t. After a couple days, things weren’t improving by much. Here’s my hand at that point — notice the lack of knuckles showing how swollen it still was: My daughter, who’s an MD, had been following the events and asked to see my medications. She then sent me information that made it clear that my doctor had given me the wrong antibiotic! Just as bad, the doctor had advised a wait and see approach, while the literature clearly shows that the right approach is to give the drug right away. I gave this information to my doctor; the only appropriate reaction would have been embarrassment and apology, and that is not what happened. Finally, I wondered what if you didn’t have an amazing daughter who happened to be an MD with access to the literature? This makes it even worse for my doctor: Dr. Google came up with the […]

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