Friday, June 10, 2011

White Coat Syndrome

I was reading a post by Diary of A Mom , where she was talking about the doctors who don't read paperwork but just know it all. We all have heard of White Coat Syndrome where as soon as the Dr. comes in we forget everything and BP goes up all that good stuff. Really though I think some of the doctors have White Coat Syndrome where once that coat goes on they know it all.

The post made me think of a psychiatrist we saw years ago. Roger would have been about 6 or 7. The way she did things was the parent would come in first and talk with her and then she would see the child on another appoint. Ok seemed kind of weird but whatever.

I went to see her and was telling her about some of the things Roger was struggling with no friends, difficulty paying attention unless its something he likes, easily distracted, etc...  She talked to me for less than 10 min. never saw Roger much less meet him, didn't talk to teachers. In that 10 min she deiced he was ADHD and needed to be medicated immediately. She wanted me to take a script for Ritalin for daytime and some sort of sleeping pill for the night.What she was not listening to was the school district had already evaluated him for ADHD and said that was not it but they didn't know what at the time.

I asked her shouldn't you see him first. She said no I already know whats going on. I didn't walk away from that doctor I ran.

Fast forward 4 years and age 11 and he is diagnosed with ASD, SPD, Executive functioning all of which explain the behaviors that were so confusing to everyone. I wish I still had her number, I can't even remember her name and who knows if she is still in practice. Just to call her and say hey remember that kid you tried to dx without seeing him (oh wait there's probably hundreds) you were wrong!!!

1 comment:

  1. OH I went through that with my son. The doctor kept wanting to say he had ADHD and kept medicating him for only that which made him more violent. I switched doctors and we discovered he was lots of things.. bipolar being the biggest

    ReplyDelete