www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Yea...I know...this is not about CR. BUT you need to be wary of these so called "walk in medical clinics".

I had a cruise planned today for a trip to the Bahamas on RCL out of Port Canaveral. I had some stomach issues over the night so I called my regular doctor. No available appts. So I went to the nearest "on the street clinic", Solantic Urgent Care. For some reason the Doc wanted me to take an EKG. The technician doing the procedure kept having problems connecting the electrodes on my hairy chest. She should have shaved them. She refused. When the readout got to the doctor, she became alarmed and asked if I wanted an ambulance to ER. I said NO, I could drive.

I had spent 2 hours there at the clinic. Then proceeded to the hospital. Another 3 hours with tests. All test came out OK. I paid more in co-pays than the cruise costs. By then, there was no way that I could drive 2-1/2 hours and take the cruise.

Yea, I glad that I am still vertical but pissed about not laying on a lounge chair on the deck sipping umbrella drinks.

If you cannot see your primary physician then go to a real hospital. Forget these so called clinics. That's my opinion.

Meantime....I'm laying on my dirty back yard next to a city dump trying to visualize my being on a ship deck chair. Sometimes.....I'm just pitiful.

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Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.

Amen, brother. I was misdiagnosed at a "doc in the box." Didn't miss a cruise, but it cost me alot of bucks to have it later done right because of the delay. Cheer up, though, think how much money you are saving on the exorbitant bar bill on the cruise, and at least you are not seasick.

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" Omit no happy hour that may give furtherance to our expedition."

Hope Shitass is laying in your lap taking care of your needs.
Regards, 911 Driver

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The happy hour is a device either for getting rid of social obligations hurriedly en masse or for making overtures toward more serious social relationships, as in the etiquette of whoring.- Brooks Atkinson

let me tell about my experience with a 'walk in' clinic.....I got all busted up in a bad fall once with broken bones and all kinds of lacerations, bumps, bruises...etc....

anyway, I go to this walk in clinic and the receptionist tells me that the 'doctor' is out to lunch and I will have to wait an hour or so.....so, I sit there for an hour until the 'doctor' comes back from lunch....

I'm ushered into the examining room where the 'doctor' (some pucking dot head motherphucker) exclaims in his phucking broken, third world english "what happened to you?.....were you drunk?"

I reply, " No Doc, I was at that cheap, two bit whorehouse down the street where your mother works.....anyway, I tried to sneak out after tagging that nasty whore but she shoestring tackled me and busted me up good....wow, your mom sure is fast Doc, but I guess you know that"

anyway, he sends me to another room for x-rays where some x-ray tech that looks like he is straight out of some phucking halfway house takes some images on a x-ray machine that looks like it was left over from the allied bombing of berlin or phucking something.

Doc (the dot headed phuck) then looks at the x-rays and proclaims "bone broken"


"No shit sherlock" I reply...." how about putting on a cast?"

"Oh no, you go to other clinic and see Doctor Mohomomead"

"And just how phucking far a camel ride is that Doc?"

anyway, I end up going the next day to a real doctor orthopedic and tell him I have a broken arm and hand him the x-rays......only to have the real docotor tell me that he has to take another set since he can't trust doc dot's set.......

phuck these cocksuckers

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The difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy Tale is that a Fairy Tale starts out 'Once Upon a Time..' and a Sea Story starts out 'This is no Shit...'

(export version only, some restrictions may apply, some assembly required, not valid where the sun don't shine...

if you live in the states of Poverty, Darkness or anywhere outside of The Blessings of Civilization Trust, Inc...other rules may apply)

+1 , although this will probably start a flame war.

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" Omit no happy hour that may give furtherance to our expedition."

My "doc in a box" is the retired doctor next door. Good man. Lucky me.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Thank you guys for the input. I can see that others have had their problems with the "Doc in the box." Ever notice how many Docs have India, Chinese, and other far eastern names. Sometimes it's difficult to communicate. But, of course there are many who certainly have the expertise which is good to know.

BTW, forget trying to call a cruise ship at sea. I had friends that were going to meet me on the ship and apparently I had an incorrect cell number to call them. Upon calling the land to ship line, I waited 3 minutes at the rate of $7.95 per minute for some person to answer the phone. NOTHING. Either they were asleep or jacking off. Won't do that again.

Still stuck in the Pits of Jax when I could be rocking on the ship with 10 to 18 foot seas guested by Issac. Which is no big thing to me. But I will miss lusting after the numerous 200 lb. plus gringras lined up at the morning, lunch, dinner and midnight buffets stuffing their fat faces with cruise grub. A sight to behold.

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Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.

Have heard plenty of these stories. Doc's with the rackem, packem and stackem attitude.
The problem is largely our own fault. We have gotten to thinking this profession are god like.
They use to call medicine a science and now it is called an art.

Have learned a few things about patient rights and the access to patient advocates.
Do yourself a favor and your blood pressure. Look and learn about your rights.
You have more than you know.

I was maybe 22 when I used to wait in the Docs waiting room for 1/2 hour or more.
Waited an hour one day then left. Next week received a bill from the Docs office for missed
office call $45.00. I was steamed. Talked to my mentor. Been in the financial field since before I
was born. He suggested that I send him a bill for my time sitting in his waiting room.
At that time the company billed my planning time out at $250 an hour. So I sent on company stationary
the bill a 1 hour of time minus the cast of the missed office appointment. Noted that the payment was due
upon receipt. I received a call from the Doctor the next week. He said how dare I send him a bill. I explained
to him what my mentor explained to me. We all have so many hours allotted to our life. It is up to us to put
value on every minute of it. Mine was at $250 per hour the same as my company did. That his office had
wasted that precious time. He apologized for the bill and the time . I never had more than a five minute after that.

The point to all this hot air is that you are the boss. You are paying for services. They are to be given with a smile, courtesy and respect.
If not complain. Insist right then and there to provide it like the old slogan of Have it your way.

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May the force be with you my CRT Jedi.

Had to locate a Dr. Gupta in my major county for professional reasons. Only had a last name. Checked with state licensing computer for Dr Gupta, MD in my major county. 49 Dr. Gupta, M.D.'s.

My cousins couldn't get into med school here, had to learn Spanish and go to school in Mexico.

Sorry for the obvious apparent insult to anybody on this board, I don't mean it that way. It just strikes me as odd. You go into any hospital in the US and it's typical. Not so in CR or 4 other LA countries I have spent alot of time in. Never been to Europe. In SE Asia, Chinese/Asian docs as far as I remember.

My point is, without doubting their skills, I don't get why. It ain't that way with dentists, lawyers, chiro's, orthodontists, osteopaths, opthamalogists, cpa's, other professions in the US--but medical/nursing practioners here, swamped.

There aren't enuf gringo's applying to med schools? Can someone enlighten me?

A telling statement here--they couldn't get into U. S. medical schools no matter how well-qualified because there aren't enough medical schools in the U. S. Plain and simple. Some examples were quoted of other medical/dental areas showing otherwise but let's look at areas like the STEM group (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths)--and the situation is much the same as with doctors. Here's a recent commentary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opini ... uture.html

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

I knew dentists banded together about 20 years ago and started closing schools--they closed the one in my major city which had been around for more than a century--to control the market. It worked, until the economy crashed dentists were doing big bucks. Now, my friends say so-so, like veterenarians, times get rough, people quit paying for teeth and pets. Legal community went the other way and screwed themselves--opened more and now flooded.

But if Jazz is correct, why not open more med school's here rather than rely on foreign grads?

Damn fine question. Short answer: The AMA restricts so as to keep existing doctors' incomes high. Here's a discussion:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=606091

Actually the real choke point is lack of residency opportunities and this situation may actually worsen near-term:
http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/m ... y-training
Bottom line: grim now, trending towards dire.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Jazz, I kind of get that part, like the dentists, but didn't the med profession over do it? Supply and demand--we've got plenty of demand but our supply is coming from overseas, that the part I don't get.

If you think it's bad now....just wait for Obama care. There will be a stampede of doctors retiring or getting out of the profession. My primary care physician is one of them and he told me that through contact with a number of other physicians...we are going to see a large number leave the profession. It's already bad enough with the restrictions on medicare/ medicaid payments to physicians. Not to mention the increased paperwork and amount of time to get paid. Not political, it's a fault of all the crooks in congress.

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Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.

That is because the Washington crooks stole all the money from Social Security and Medicare and left an
IOU. At crap intrest rate and guess who is going to pay that note off. Just so they could buy votes with all the free
handouts they bought with your money.

Simple enough they never new or cared what the words trust or fund meant.
Strange since a hell of a lot of them are attorneys. I guess money just don't buy that
much education anymore.

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May the force be with you my CRT Jedi.