Is There a Fat Friendly Doctor in the House?

October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What better time is there to make an appointment for a physical examination and/or a mammogram? If you haven't already done so, now is the time! As you know, early detection is the best weapon women have for fighting against Breast Cancer.

I know what you are thinking; "I hate to go to the doctor!" For full figured women having to go to any doctor, for any treatment is a huge undertaking. Why? Because most (I stress here most, not all) health care practitioners make us feel like second class citizens. Having to go to the doctor, for any reason, is bad enough. But the experience is made worse because we know beforehand that when we arrive at the doctors office we are going to be confronted by seats in the waiting room that are too small, a nurse that complains because she has to search for the bigger blood pressure cuff and a doctor who berates us for our weight, rather than paying attention to the reason we came to see him in the first place.

I had an unpleasant experience with my family doctor that made me avoid doctors altogether for several years afterwards. I had gone to see him for an upper respiratory infection. He met with me in the exam room, examined me, gave me a prescription and walked me to the door. As I was on my way out - through a waiting room full of people - he said "Mary Ellen, when are you going to do something about your weight problem?" If I had been a quick thinker I could have said something like, "When you do something about your bedside manner!" But all I wanted to do was shrink into the carpet and disappear. I don't think any experience in my life was more embarrassing than that one. I don't know why he felt the need to humiliate me in front of all the other patients, rather than to voice his concerns to me in the privacy of the exam room.

Needless to say I never went back to him and it was only recently that I managed to gather up the courage to see a new doctor. Although weigh-ins are a part of the office visit, my new doctor never mentions my weight, unless I am the one to bring it up. The nurses know I need the large blood pressure cuff and they have it available. If it happens to be in another examining room they retrieve it, without comment.

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