Malpractice

I just ran across an item that infuriates me.

When Diane was experiencing depression (which turned out to be due to low thyroid), the incompetent family doctor she saw did not give her a simple blood test that could have immediately diagnosed her problem.

A middle-aged woman patient presenting with depression should automatically be tested for low thyroid. It’s a simple blood test. He did not give her a test. Instead, he diagnosed her with depression and prescribed Zoloft for the depression.

Just today, as I was researching for a character in my novel, I learned that twenty percent of patients experience diarrhea from Zoloft. In other words, it is common.

After she was on the medication a couple of months, Diane had severe diarrhea. It became chronic severe colitis. When she finally saw a GI specialist for the colitis, her thyroid condition was found and treated easily. By then the colitis was established in her gut and persisted for decades after discontinuing the Zoloft.

Nothing can be done about what happened thirty years ago. I can only hope that the GP and the woman who referred Diane to that doctor reside in Hell now, and will somehow learn of their posthumous roles as characters in my novel.