How to File a Complaint on a Physician

I'm not normally one to complain, as I have a deep and empathetic understanding of the fact that very few things go as planned. We're all human and there is only so much a person can do in certain situations. The following (horror) story however, has brought me to the point where I feel I must say something. As well, I should tell others that we CAN say something, just in case someone else has similar encounters.

We have had a particular family physician for a few years now and at first we had no problems. In the last couple of years though, we have been having an increasing number of unpleasant incidents including things like not being called back when promised, giving him statements of facts (about symptoms and medical history) that are subsquently ignored, failed diagnoses and lack of effort and/or interest in obtaining correct diagnoses.

Our most recent incident was the straw that broke the camel's back. My daughter was suffering from severe nausea. She had been vomiting off and on since early morning. After work, I took her into the local urgent care (it's the type of clinic that is open after work hours to help alleviate the need to go to the ER). The doctor on call turned out to be the family physician. He gave her the usual routine of checking eyes, ears, nose, throat and lungs. Then wrote it off as a sinus infection. Even though he barely looked at her nose. Plus she didn't even have a stuffy or runny nose!

When he was asking us the usual questions about symptoms, I told him exactly - vomiting, a slight fever, a bit of a cough. I also tried to explain that her brother had just gone through the same symptoms only a couple days before, (which in our minds, meant it was probably a stomach flu as his symptoms only lasted a day or two). He basically cut me off and completely ignored these pertinent details. Just chalked the nausea off as due to the sinus infection.

We decided we didn't like that diagnosis one bit and needed a second opinion. The next nearest place I could take her and still be under the insurance, was almost an hour away. By this time, it was past the urgent care hours so now I had to take her into the ER. Being that this hospital was in a larger, more populated city, the ER was packed with people. It was 2 hours before they were even able to get her into triage to do the preliminary tests (blood pressure, temperature, etc.) Then it was back out to the waiting room for another hour. Once we were called back in to see the actual doctor, it was only a matter of minutes before she said it was a virus, a.k.a. a stomach flu. I told her what the other doctor had diagnosed and she kind of laughed and said "it's clearly flu symptoms." I agreed. The ER gave her some medicine for the fever and gave us the usual paperwork about how to handle a virus, and we were on our way home - after 4 hours in the ER. We didn't get home until after 2 AM!

Had the first doctor (the family physician) listened to us and actually considered the facts, we would have never had to visit the ER in the first place. Some of you might say this sounds like a classic case of "unhappy consumer" where the consumer simply doesn't like what they hear and so goes from place to place until they find the answer they want. I believe however, that the facts presented themselves quite clearly in this case. Her symptoms were unmistakeably flu-like and our only concern was that she seemed to be worse off than her brother had been so we wanted to double check and make sure it wasn't the H1N1. To be told something completely askew of the symptoms was baffling.

Therefore, I have decided enough is enough and it is time to tell someone of the problems we've been having with this physician. Licensed physicians usually have to undergo serious and grueling tests in order to acquire their license. This is supposed to help ensure that they are knowledgeable in their field of choice. Being that they are human however, means that even with such testing in place, some doctors are not necessarily meant to be doctors.

It is up to the consumer to help weed out those professionals who are not quite right for their field. We are not stuck with whomever we get. There are ways for us to contribute to the process and we should take advantage that.

If you wish to file a complaint about a doctor, write a letter (I've seen it is recommended to send certified) to your state medical board and send a copy to the Federation of State Medical Boards. To find your state medical board you can type in "yourstate medical board" in a search engine, go to your state's government website, or start with the Federation of State Medical Board's website (http://www.fsmb.org).

Also check your state's government website for a department called "Professional Regulation" or something similar to that. This is another place that takes complaints on licensed professionals within the state.

NOTE: Some state government websites offer search engines that allow you to look up a physician to see if there have been any previous disciplinary actions taken against that person. Very nice feature!