Doctor, X-ray, MRI

Going to the Doctor

For an American, trying to find a French doctor can be a tricky business.  Luckily, a French friend told me that the local pharmacist can recommend a nearby doctor. Sure enough, it works. My local pharmacist even recommended a local doctor who speaks English!

I called the doctor to make an appointment to check on my broken ankle. He said to me, “When would you like to come in?” I was so surprised by that question that I had to stumble for a moment. I’m used to being told the soonest available time and it can be as long as months away in the U.S. I asked the doctor if I could come in tomorrow morning. He said, “What time?” Again, I thought this was a trick or something. I said “11:00,” and he said, “Fine. See you then.” I then wondered if this was some lousy doctor who had no patients.

The next morning I realized I had a conflict with a meeting and I called the doctor at 9:00 and asked, very apologetically, if it would be in any way possible to come in at 11:30. The doctor said, “No problem. See you then.” Again I had a suspicious feeling, but that paled in comparison to the joy I felt at being able to make a doctor’s appointment that was actually convenient for me.

At 11:30, I arrived at the front door and rang the bell. The door buzzed and I went up to the second floor, rang the bell again, and was greeted by the doctor. It looked like any nice apartment in Paris. He directed me to the waiting room, inside one door, and said he’d be five minutes. He went into the room next door and I heard him talking to a patient through the wall.

The waiting room consisted of what looked like our own living room, but with chairs and a couch lining the four walls and a coffee table with magazines on the inside. It had hardwood floors and a molded ceiling with beautiful decorations carved into it. As I sat there for five minutes, the doctor must have let 6-7 more people into the waiting room. I wondered if we all had appointments at the same time.

The doctor called me into the room next door, where there was a desk, two chairs facing it, a patient table off to the side, along with hundreds of books and some other equipment. This room also looked like it could be a living room in someone’s home except for the décor. While we talked about the ankle for about five minutes, the doctor received two telephone calls. I heard him say to each person, “When would you like to come in?” and “See you then.” Both of the times that he repeated were within five minutes of each other, in just a couple of hours. He didn’t note either of the times down. I realized that he didn’t really make appointments. He just said you could come and he’d call the people in the order received from the waiting room. He also buzzed in a few more people during my appointment; he had no assistant.

The appointment was quite fast. I told him about my ankle and also about a problem that I was having with one of my fingers. He wrote a prescription (a note on a notepad with letterhead on it) for an x-ray for the finger and an MRI for the ankle. All said and done, I owed 30 Euros. He kindly filled out a form that I could send in to my insurance company, but I almost laughed at going through the effort for only 30 Euros—a far cry from the cost of an American doctor’s appointment.

I called up the clinic where I had to get the x-ray and did actually have to make an appointment there, but it was within a couple of days. The MRI was 2 weeks because they only do them on Tuesday afternoons between 1:30-6:00. (After having had so much freedom with the doctor’s appointment, the MRI window seemed excessively small.)

Getting the X-ray

I walked into the radiology clinic and checked in with the receptionist. To register with the clinic, all she needed was my name, birth date, and telephone number. She told me to sit down and that I’d be called by the doctor. It’s hard to describe the waiting room. First off, it was more of a hallway than a room. The hallway was about as wide as a hallway inside someone’s home, but with benches down each side. In other words, with people sitting on the benches facing each other, you could barely walk through—sideways—without stepping on their feet.

The hallway was “T” shaped and only a few yards long in any direction. It looked like some sort of out-dated Disney ride, with large purple and grey triangles of old faux velvet covering the seats and backs of the benches and purple and grey walls with funky lights on them. The benches were small and narrow and didn’t actually seat that many people. They were interrupted by numerous small doors. Some doors were labeled “cabinet” (changing room) and others “WC” (toilet) and others had different kinds of imaging labels on them and radiation warning symbols. The flimsy wooden doors hardly seemed like they would provide much shielding.

I only waited for about 10 minutes until the technician called me in to get the x-ray. I walked sideways down the hallway and sideways through the narrow doorway into a closet-sized room. The technician told me to stand on a little step and lean against the wall and spread my hand out on the wall while he aimed the x-ray machine at it. He then stepped behind a window to a computer with a screen and took the x-ray. Note that I was never covered in a lead apron and he didn’t seem concerned about it either. The computer screen was so close that I could see the image of my hand on it. There was no secrecy; I saw everything that happened in there. He took 3-4 images and told me to go back out and wait for the doctor to call me.

I went back to the waiting area, which was more crowded this time, and managed to find a slice of bench to sit on. The doctor called me into his office after a few minutes and I got to see another closet-sized room. He opened the image on the computer and told me I had no broken bones and that I should have an ultrasound to look at the soft tissue. (My other doctor had written on the prescription to do an ultrasound if necessary so that was all good.) The doctor told me to wait in the waiting area to be called for the ultrasound.

I sat down next to someone, took a deep breath, and realized I had made a dreadful mistake. She had horribly strong body odor! I panicked. How do you artfully get up in the waiting room and find a distant seat without being totally obvious about it. Bingo, I saw some magazines. I got up and sifted through them, found one, and sat down on the opposite side of the hall as far away as I could—about 3 feet. It wasn’t far enough. I had to come up with another plan. I stood up, made a point of stretching my legs and limped over with my ankle brace to a seat just across from the receptionist, and made a large gesture of sticking out my leg to let it stretch. The air was clear over here.

I watched the receptionist work, signing in patients and taking people’s payments. After 20 minutes, she picked up a folder and looked at me and said, “You’re the one who needs an ultrasound?” “Yes,” I said as I watched her then put my folder in the ultrasound queue. Trying not to show my bewilderment that she had just let the folder sit there for 20 minutes untouched, I kindly asked her how long it would take. She said there were two patients ahead of me and that each ultrasound usually takes 10-15 minutes.

Forty-five minutes later (just when I was starting to wonder if my folder had been lost again), another technician called me into yet another closet-sized room. He told me to wait there for the doctor. Several minutes later, the same doctor came in and did an ultrasound of my finger.

I couldn’t help but giggle when he put the gel on my pinky finger and tried to get the ultrasound wand to make contact. It was so tiny! I was waiting for him to show me a fetus or something, but just as clearly, he pointed out all of the cartilage in my little finger. I nodded as if I saw everything he did, just as I had during my pregnancy ultrasounds. It turns out there was damage to the cartilage, but nothing bad. After waiting for close to an hour and a half, we got through this in less than five minutes and I was sent out to be called by the receptionist to check out. I didn’t take my chances with her and got straight into the line of people at the counter. When I got to the front, she picked up my folder and said she was just about to call me.

Holding my breath as she totaled up my bill, I gave her the credit card. An x-ray, an ultrasound, and two consultations with the doctor was bound to put a dent on it. But it only cost a grand total of only 100 Euros! No wonder my insurance company said they didn’t need to pre-approve treatment in France. The receptionist gathered up my images and reports and put them into a bag and told me to take them back to my normal doctor for him to give me a treatment plan. I walked out of the office and immediately opened the bag and looked at all of the images and read the doctor’s reports to the other doctor. No doctor has ever let me handle these before!

I called my normal doctor back the next afternoon at 3:00 to set up the follow-up appointment. He offered me 5:15—in just two hours! I had plans that evening so we made it for first thing the next morning. When I rang the bell at 10:05 (10 minutes early), he looked like he was just finishing his breakfast or something. He showed me to the waiting room and closed the door. I could hear him walking around into the different rooms doing stuff. It was at this point that I realized this really was an apartment—his!

Getting the MRI

The MRI appointment is at a different location than the x-ray. It turns out to be at a hospital. I have no idea where the MRI department is so I ask the lady at the Welcome desk. She tells me I have to go to Admissions to get a card for the hospital, past the elevators to the left. I arrive at a hallway that I think may be Admissions but there is no sign. I walk past a number of closed doors to a line of chairs along the wall with people waiting in them and see a machine on the wall to the right. The sign above it says to take a ticket with a number on it and wait to get called to an Admissions person. Uh, oh. When I made the appointment, they never said to get there early!

About 15 minutes later, my number comes up on the screen and it says to go to Office #5. I open a door on the hallway that says “offices 3-5” on it to see many empty cubicles and a sign with an arrow pointing to go around the corner to get to #5. I round the corner and yes, there is a man there waiting for me! He asks for my ID card and a "carte vital." I have no idea what that is so I give him my passport and tell him I am not in the French health system and I am insured in America. "Oh," he says, "you need to see one of my colleagues." He takes me back into the hall and tells me to sit down and wait outside of an empty office. It is now 2:20 and my appointment was for 2:00. I fear that they may tell me to come back another day when I finally make it to the MRI room.

I wait for 5-10 minutes and a woman goes into the office, ignoring me completely. I start to wonder if the guy has told anyone I need attention. I peek into the office and the woman is on the phone. A man walking by asks me if I am waiting for someone. I tell him what happened and he says he'll find someone. A couple of minutes later, a woman comes up to me and asks me what I want. I tell her the situation (for the third time) and she seems to agree that it is something she should help with. She takes me down a winding hallway to office #10. She enters me into the system and gives me a form to bring to the MRI, telling me I need to pay at the cashier on the way out.

I ask her where to go for the MRI and she tells me to take the elevator to RB. I figure out how to get back to the elevator but have no idea if floor RB is up or down. I choose down and get it right. Outside the elevator, there is yet another hall with lots of closed doors. One of the doors is open and has a line drawn on the floor with "Confidentiality" written on it. There are desks with people inside. I decide to wait there but notice little green arrows on the floor with "MRI" written on them. I follow the arrows down another hallway to a grouping of chairs with people in them. The arrows stop there but there is no staff person. I notice that the people waiting have folders and decide to go back to wait behind the Confidentiality line at the room with desks.

Two women are serving customers, a third is reviewing papers. I infer that the papers are more important than a customer because she ignores me. (I see this all of the time in France. There is an idle salesperson standing next to an occupied one and they won't help you out. They just stand there doing nothing or continue to do a non-pressing task while you wait for the other one to free up.) One woman finally frees up and it turns out I am in the right place to sign in for the MRI. She enters my info into the computer, gives me an empty folder with my name on it, and tells me to follow the green arrows. It is now 2:45. There are two other people waiting. I sit and wait to be called.

In the meantime, a French man comes and sits down and asks me if this is the place to wait for an MRI. "Ha!" I think. “It's even confusing to them!” I kindly tell him that he should go back and check in and they'll give him a folder.

About 15 minutes later, a technician calls me, takes my folder, leads me to a dressing room and tells me to change into a disposable gown and disposable slippers and to put in some ear plugs. The gown is comfortable and warm and even has real cloth cuffs on the ends of the sleeves, like kids' pajamas. Wow, all this for an ankle! In California, they just had me roll up my pant leg.

I change in the dressing room with the doorless doorway wide open, musing about the lack of privacy. As I am trying to figure out how to tie the robe in the back, the male doctor walks in and asks me exactly where the problem is with my ankle. Surprised but not at all modest after having given birth in a hospital room full of men, I pause and show him my ankle. He leaves and I finish up. I decide to leave the ear plugs for the last minute, though, in case I have to talk to anyone.

The technician comes in and asks if I’m all dressed and whether I have put the ear plugs in yet. I tell her that I was waiting till the last minute and she says to put them in now. So I do. Then she calls me into the MRI room and asks me half a dozen questions. It’s hard enough to understand medical questions in French, but with ear plugs in, it’s quite the challenge! “Have you ever had brain surgery? Do you have a pacemaker? Do you have any metal inside your body? Are you fat?” Fat? Um… Oh, pregnant! No!

After the MRI, the technician brings me back to the dressing room and I realize I’m an idiot. There is a door that closes, but further down the hallway! I close it and get dressed. A moment later, as I’m pulling my shirt on over my head, the technician blasts right in to see if I’m ready. Oh, well.