You asked what people think. You got what people think.

Personally I think it's a good barometer for you - you are pissed off and probably not very objective (as anyone would be that's had a bit of a run-in with a doctor) but you got peoples' opinion and thoughts.

Good Thinking

Did you do it last time too?

But look at this another way, how would you feel if you had an appt and someone kept glancing at their phone whilst you are including them in a conversation ?

I would be quite annoyed as it is jolly rude - yes, he maybe expressed himself the wrong way but then you should have turned your phone off..

( You weren't on a flight from London last week were you? I had to tell someone off as they were using their phone when we about to take off when they were told twice to turn them off)

Forget the whole experience and remember next time to switch it off..

No. He was upset that you were being disrespectful of him and his time. I wouldn't be surprised if you had no clue what he diagnosed as you weren't even paying attention.

I think your behavior was just as rude as his. No one said what he did was right. Neither was what you did.

Ok, try and turn this situation around...

Imagine that while you and your daughter were in the doctor's office, the doctor was tapping on his Blackberry - or answered the phone. You would probably find that rude and unprofessional, wouldn't you? So why should there be one rule of courtesy for your doctor and another for you? As several people have said, you are generally requested to turn your mobile phone off when in the doctor's office.

It's the same when you meet other professionals. You expect them to refrain from answering the phone / e-mails on your time, and you extend them the same consideration.

I don't know what you do, but how would you feel if you were trying to have an important discussion with a customer / client and and they were more interested in their mobile than what you were saying? Perhaps you might get angry / stressed too.

I'm not saying the way the doctor handled the situation was good, but I think he had a valid point.

I'm sure the doctor already got you REPORTED .

Who said that the doctor yelling was okay?


In my experience, there are plenty of times when allergies CAUSE eye infections as people tend to rub their eyes when they are itchy and runny. Add to that the common teenage girl usage of eye makeup and you've got perfect opportunity for infection. ("Dirty" hands + eye makeup getting rubbed into eyes = bad news)

ALSO, generally speaking, it is a good idea to see an eye doctor if there are troubles suspected with eyes as they have been trained specifically to deal with that area of the body. Good on you for taking her to see one, perhaps something about the relay of that information rubbed the GP the wrong way. Knowing some "regular" doctors, working with a few different eye doctors, I'd be shocked indeed to hear anything other than one recommending the other for their areas of expertise.

This takes me back to the whole cellphone / checking email thing. When I used to deal with teenage "patients" regarding their eye care, it was frustrating indeed if the teenager was not empowered to take matters into their own hands WHILE AT THE SAME TIME the parent was mentally "absent" from the proceedings.

From the viewpoint of someone who has been in similar position to the doctor:
If you needed to be attentive to the phone, you should have stayed out of the doctor's office and waited in the waiting room, otherwise you should have turned off the phone for the duration of the consultation.

__________________
The Joys of Opticianry

OK - I think the difference is that I am paying the doctor for his time. To take an extreme viewpoint, I should be able to play tiddlywinks in his office if I am paying for his time. The Dr. might not like it, and he is free to say so. But to lose his temper and yell at the patient's Mother? Way out of line, and I would not have stood for it, I would have found another DR, and I would tell the clinic why I am leaving.

And since the actual patient was a 17 yr old girl, she should be able to converse with the Dr. In fact, it seems this was the case. And if the Dr. wanted to speak directly with the Mom at some point, he could have said so.

All this aside, I want to reiterate that I don't really care which country one is in, this is not professional behavior and I do not understand how so many people in CH just roll over and feel like it is ok.

Anyway, I finally left CH and am quite happy about it. There were many things I liked but I will not look back... Can't stand places where customer service does not exist.

fduvall

Whether he yelled or not, only your pride is hurt.

You should have been paying full attention to the situation at hand.

If he's incompetent, then change doctors.

Regardless, paying attention to your phone during a consultation was not only rude towards him, it also demonstrated a lack of attention to your 17 year old. Your attention was/is even more required if you feel his diagnostic is incorrect and you might need a second or third opinion.

I'd just forget his bad mood, learn the lesson, change doctors (perhaps check out your cantonal hospital if you need another opinion)

__________________
.
"Il mondo è fatto a scale, chi le scende e chi le sale"

Pretty much all of the apologists on this thread... directly and indirectly. And this is just one thread of many that are similar.

fduvall

Paying for a service or not, doesn't respect come into it anywhere? My own rudeness-antennae would tell me I was acting like a bit of an arrogant twunk if I went in with the attitude "I'm paying you, therefore I will act in anyway I choose..."

Sometimes it goes a bit deeper than an invoice at the end of the month.

I would have stamped on your phone and then chucked you out of the office.
E-mails can wait your daughter can't, how do you think she feels? "mummy wants her phone!"
Same with these morons walking, talking everywhere, get an telecom implant people.

Perhaps the OP can clarify what she meant by the doctor "yelling"? I've got a vision of a doctor making himself hoarse bellowing at her but perhaps US-yelling is what we Brits would call "talking sternly".

If it was the top-of-the-lungs-bellowing I think I would have just dropped my Blackberry and had a good laugh.

I often read about someone "yelling" on this forum and have all sorts of funny visions....

Not one single person said this, directly or indirectly.

I had my blackberry on a silent mode yet occasionally was checking for missed calls or emails from work...You are in my office and you did this last time too I cannot stand this!!!

I'm still waiting for a reply to this bit.

I think a relevant point is that the daughter is seventeen. So, although the mother is probably footing the bill and 'paying for his time' - in which case, as fduvall says, she can 'do as she likes' with it - the patient is a young lady with a problem which needs HER full attention to sort things out and a Mother in the background fiddling with anything is disturbing the consultation between these two people, the doctor and the patient.

( I don't think my daughters, at that age, would have even consulted me about going unless they specifically needed my support. )

__________________
Longbyt

I have to say, I'm sometimes on-call for our "Pikett".
Thus, I have to take every call and every SMS (from our monitoring-system) seriously and look into it immediately.
To blindly assume that people who have to check their phones are just addicts is wrong.
Not everybody lusts after somebody else' latest facebook status-update or a re-tweet from a follower...
But the doc clearly thought you didn't pay him enough respect.
Of course, doctors don't want to discuss with their patients either.
All the shit he had to during his study - and now every idiot with a mobile phone can lookup (and question) everything he says on wikipedia - as he speaks.
And if it's not on wikipedia, there's guaranteed to be a special-interest forum where a dozen people (all with a very high "forum-reputation") can bring-on a dozen different explanations of the symptoms that all contradict to what he said. People will print those out and bring all with them to the next session.
I'm sure, that sometimes drives doctors nuts ;-)
That, and references to Dr. House or other TV-shows.
;-)

As for reporting - I'm sure there's some ombudsman to report this to - but don't have too much hope for that to result in anything substantial.
More often than not, the ombudsman is just another doctor that will write a friendly letter to both the doctor and you that states that he is sorry for the trouble but nothing seriously wrong happened.
As they say: There's honour among thieves.
Switzerland is a very small country. Be careful what you do or say to whom.

In my previous company it got so bad that we decided to teach phone and email etiquette.
For example:
-When you talk to somebody, you do not answer your phone (It is why you have voicemail).
-When you have good news, feel free to send an email and CC a lot of people.
-When you have bad news. Do not use email. use your phone instead.
etc... etc...
We also covered the use of the Blackberry in meetings. Great class and tips I keep using even outside work.

The phone might also be of worry to the Doctor - who knows, it might be capable of recording a protected and confidential conversation between the treating doctor and patient.

A. Doctor was wrong, yelling at patients resp. mom of patient is NOT ok. A doctor patient relationship is based on trust and confidentiality. None of this was shown in this incident.

B. I do understand that once in a while you just HAVE to check important messages. BUT: there is a waiting room for this. You could have explained to the doctor that you are in the waiting room, if need be.

C. OK - your daughter is 17 ! - what are you doing with her at the doctor's examination room? (Don't want to boast my capabilities of doctor visits, but I was 10 when I went alone to our family doctor and I was perfectly fine).

D. All doctors I have, possess no extra time, resp. make time for their patients. I think it's disrespectful to annoy someone in context of time. Personally I get a bit irritated if someone plays with MY time, so I try to respect time of my counterpart.

Don't take it seriously. If it makes you happy, report him to the Department of Health (Gesundheitsdirektion) - not that this will reflect in any action against the doctor.