Whirlwind Trip to Salt Lake
Yesterday was quite the day - Seattle to Salt Lake City and back. My CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or as Scott monikered the acronym, Chicken Fried Steak) doc is in Salt Lake and I was due for my annual check-up. So, it made sense to hop over for the day from Seattle.
The traveling itself was tiring and I compounded it by doing four geocaches - on foot - between downtown Salt Lake and my doc’s office which is closer to the University of Utah than it is to downtown Salt Lake. By the time I arrived at my doctor’s office, I was appropriately fatigued for my CFS doc.
Anyhoo, it was a good visit. Lots of great research going on. I’ve been seeing Dr. Batemam for seven years and the amount of knowledge in the field has increased exponentially during that time period. Now we just need the next steps to get underway - leveraging the research results for treatment.
This article on Dr. Bateman is quite good and these paragraphs are spot on:
“There are so many patients; it’s not like I could possibly take care of everyone. My idea was to become better at it, to really learn about it from seeing patients, and then also to have a strong commitment to raising awareness about the illnesses among patients, but also in the medical community,” she explains.
“Mostly what struck me about [my sister’s case] is what strikes every patient, and that is that when people ran out of ideas, they sort of abandoned her. That is just not the way I want to practice medicine, so that’s why I like to stay in the trenches with primary care, delivering good healthcare and being a resource for patients who really need some help,” says Dr. Bateman.
“Good healthcare” to Dr. Bateman means “time” and “listening.” Having seen more than 1,100 ME/CFS patients, with whom she spends 2 to 4 hours on each initial consultation, Dr. Bateman has gained a reputation for her comprehensive, methodical work-ups. “There’s a message we learned (at Johns Hopkins) that the patient can tell you most of what you need to know if you’ll just listen, so I listened to my patients,” she explains. “The only thing I think we do differently here is we try to find a way to take more time with the patient.”
Overall an excellent day. I arrived back in Seattle at 8:30 PM - I waved at the Ski Boy, Pooh, Alix, and Anna as my plane flew over Safeco field and the Mariners-Red Sox game. We then all met-up at Tulio’s apres game/trip for grand marnier, port, dessert wine and goodies!
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