Something's Afoot, 4 Feb 12

When I went to see the doc a few weeks ago and got an xray, nothing looked broken. So the GP doc referred me to a sports medicine doc for further investigation. "He can order an MRI, I can't" the GP doc said. I asked who he recommended and he said, "I've heard good things about Dr. Castricum." Ok then. I called and got an appointment for 2 weeks in the future. Of course, that turned out to be the day they finally decided to deliver my furniture. However, I could still make the appointment.

The night before, on a whim, I looked up the sports medicine doc. Turns out he's the doc for the Australian national track and field team. He's the doc that goes to the OLYMPICS. Are you kidding? And he did his masters-by-research thesis on exercise induced asthma

Of course the day of the appointment, my shipped goods arrived. So I diddled around at home putting stuff away. Then I decided I'd better take the ped-egg - the item in my shipment I'd been most looking forward to getting - to my callused feet. My feet were so bad that the pedicurist and the spa professional (both part of Jean's visit) had given me strategies to soften my feet up. Since I was going to the doc for my foot, odds are there'd be one more person in line to comment about their sorry state. So I took 5 minutes to get after those calluses with the egg. And then was 5 minutes late for my appointment. The sacrifices made for beauty.... well, maybe for less ugly, in this case.

The sports medicine clinic is in the part of downtown least accessible by public transport. I arrived all hot and sweaty with a sore foot because I'd basically been speedwalking for the last 30 minutes. (Did I mention my bike arrived with NO pedals? I was so looking forward to biking to that appointment.) I called huffing and puffing to say I'd be late and the lovely woman that answered the phone said, "No worries, I tell Dr. Castricum." Not, "I'll tell his nurse." This seemed strange.

I arrived, filled out my new patient paperwork, and then a male voice said, "Amy, come through please." Yep, the doc himself came out to get me. Stranger yet.

Dr. Castricum is about my age. He was wearing a gray polo shirt, untucked, faded blue jeans and blue Asics tennies - the skinny sort of fashionable kind of both jeans and tennies. His hair kind of stands on end. He took me back to his office, checked out my foot and told me I needed an MRI. He then proceeded to call the MRI clinic, fill in all the relevant info on the computer while he was on hold with them, schedule me an appointment with them for the next day, print out the referral form I needed, and then schedule my appointment to come back and see him the day after.

I made it all the way until the end of all those steps before I said, "OK, that would NEVER happen in the US - you, the doctor, would not make an MRI appointment for me."

"I know. And it wouldn't cost you $60 for the MRI, either." (FYI, it cost me $500 for the MRI)

In the spirit of the thing I continued, "OK, and not only that, but you're the doc for the Olympic team and I just got in to see you."

"Well, that's just one day a week that I work with them. I see people the rest of the time. You know I met the guy who works with the US Olympic team... (a bit of conversation here where we sorted out what state the guy was from, we settled on Portland, OR)... did you know they don't even pay him? He does it for free. All the money the US spends on the Olympics and they don't even pay a team doctor."

I didn't know what to say to that. And by the way, what do nurses do here in Oz? Are there any?