Doctors

Well, no one. It is not a violation of any law for the doctor to practice his best medical opinion, and even if he does, you are not required by law to do as he advises.

You can always seek another opinion.

Be prepared though for the next doctor to tell you the same.

Based on the exposition in the discussion area:

There is no question that you were ill. What is important to understand is that when people are as sick as you describe that you and your husband were, their perceptions are not always as clear as it would seem. Situations often are warped by compromised perceptions and the stress of the situation. This is not to say that events did not transpire as you believe, but it is something to consider, and any investigating body is going to take this into account before they even begin an investigation.

Okay, you shared that you suffer from some sort of chronic condition. That you have repeatedly experienced vomiting and severe weight loss clearly indicates this. That your doctor instructed you to visit the ER is an indication that you called either after regular office hours, or that the condition you and your husband suffered from were of an emergent degree. Both would require that you visit the Emergency Room, no matter where you lived.

That the doctor at the ER prescribed an antibiotic stated undeniably that your husband was suffering from some sort of bacterial infection. You expressed dissatisfaction that your doctor would not prescribe similar for you based on the examination the ER doctor made of your husband. This is protocol, and it is not legal for your doctor you prescribe medications for you based on another doctor's examination of another person. Additionally, it would be unethical. You state that your doctor again directed you to go to the ER. It appears that you may have refused, and this could be a contributing factor for the later reaction of your doctor, but I will address this later.

You shared that your doctor has no facilities for testing or other procedures in his new office. There are countless others physicians who do not have such facilities inside their offices, and in the absence of labs or other such services, send their patients to the local hospital for testing and procedures. This is common protocol and there is not legitimate reason for complaint here.

That your personal physician's office is often overbooked is a strong indication that he is a good and trusted physician in your area. His patients are fortunate that he takes the time and tries to squeeze in as many office appointments as possible. This is a privilege, but I will get into that more later.

You shared, perhaps a bit too openly, that you are being seen by an endocrinology expert. Patients who require such care can have very complicated cases. Having diabetes myself, I am quite familiar with the condition and some of the complications. One of these is often short temper and aggressive behavior. I will tie this together in a moment, but keep this in mind.

Your doctor considering stopping all current medication can be a viable and legitimate treatment choice. If what you are doing is not working, it begs the question, "Why continue doing it?" Perhaps he wanted to start over and develop a new baseline from which to proceed. Again, a legitimate choice. Not a comfortable one for the patient, but ultimately it can be quite effective.

While you are the patient, he is the doctor. His professional opinion does matter. Not that yours as the patient does not, but you have a choice to see what ever doctor you choose.

Medications, while necessary to some degree, are often not an immediate matter of life and death. Even in the case of type 1 diabetes, the disease can be controlled by diet and exercise with no use of insulin at all. Was in fact for centuries before artificial insulin was ever developed. The use of insulin for diabetics just makes it easier to treat the disease, and helps to improve the quality and length of life for the patient.

You shared that you had a fever of 102, and that your husband questioned the efficacy of taking you out into cold weather so that you could be seen by a doctor at the ER. This is important so pay particular attention: the only affect cold weather will have on a fever of 102 is to help reduce it. Cold does not make people sick. Let me repeat that to stress the fact: COLD DOES NOT MAKE PEOPLE SICK. That being said, the fact that your husband showed resistance to the recommendation of a medical professional IS rudeness and can be construed as abusive. Keep in mind, YOU called the doctor. YOU took his time away from him. HE offered you his best medical advice. And YOU threw that back in his face. THAT IS ABUSIVE.

The doctor, your personal physician, is not required by any law to treat you. Nor is he bound by any legislation to take what ever treatment others dish out. While it might have been rude, even unprofessional for his staff member to hand up on your husband, I was not there to witness it, and have only what you have shared to make any assessment of what actually happened. Based on what you shared and how it was shared, I can say that you are lucky you were dealing with someone as caring and professional as you were. Had I been on the other end of the line, I can assure you that I would have shared probably some choice vocabulary with you. Consider that you do not live in this world alone, and how you behave has a lot to do with how others react to you. Consider yourself lucky.

If you know better that your professional medical provider how to treat your condition, why are you seeing that medical provider? Why would you want to?

You shared that you cannot receive acupuncture because of an allergy to stainless steel. Guess what--if that is the case, if what you share is true, then you cannot receive any injection, or most medical procedures. ALL injection needles, and all metal medical devices are made with stainless steel. Stainless steel is hypoallergenic, it does not produce an allergic reaction.

That you physician offered to continue to treat you for thirty days for your two chronic conditions you did not question his decisions on, is admirable. He is not required by law to do so. While lack of treatment for either can be life threatening, they are not immediately life threatening, and as such, no doctor in the US is required to treat you, and cannot be compelled to do so. He has offered to forward your records, this is all he is required to do. That he would not let you speak when you continued to harrass his office is understandable. Find another doctor, learn from your mistakes, and listen to what they tell you, and finally, FOLLOW THEIR ORDERS.

Regarding what the ER doctors have to say about non-emergency patients being seen there: they are correct. The ER is for emergency treatment and life threatening conditions. If there are no clinics available at the local hospital, many ERs do double duty. Something to consider though: if you are rude or abusive to ER staff, they do not have to treat you either--unless failing to do so will result in your immediate death. They are professionally responsible for advising you, but if you refuse to take their advise, their responsibility ends with the echo of their words dying.

You are obviously unhappy with the medical service you have received, however, from what you describe, the doctor has done nothing illegal or unethical. You have no grounds for complaint.

I expect that this will not make you happy and you will continue to seek ways to make this doctor's life even more miserable than you already have. Here's the thing though: do not expect to try to do so here. WikiAnswers is not a sounding board for personal information that you have already posted. That I have taken the time and utilized the resources to try to show you that you have been wrong, only shows that our goal is to be helpful to all of our contributors. That you will invariably be dissatisfied with the answer you received more closely follows the next bit of wisdom I have to share:

If you do not like the advice you receive, perhaps you need to look at the question you asked; the blame likely lies with you.

Another way to look at this: if you hang a target, expect someone to shoot at it.