By Steven Neil
Even, now I hear the doctor’s words as she looked at the rash and blistering on my face like it was just yesterday; “you need to get a different job.” With much regret, I went ahead and filed a worker’s comp for my dermatitis following my second visit to Urgent Care. The next day, an L&I representative advised me to have a doctor fill out the paperwork to authorize my time-loss case. With only two dermatology clinics in my area authorized to accept L&I claims, it took a couple of weeks to get an appointment, during which time I was off work. Without realizing it, however, I had become a statistic, and being a statistic is rarely a positive thing, as Joseph Stalin said: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”
Being a statistic in my case meant that I had joined the unlucky group that was misdiagnosed by a doctor. Contrary to what many believe, even with all the advances in technology, the numbers of misdiagnosed people are not decreasing. In 2013 the British Medical Journal printed the results of a ground-breaking study conducted on the frequency of diagnostic errors. The study revealed that 5.08% of all adult outpatient diagnoses were wrong, which means that doctors misdiagnose around 12 million adults every year, with approximately 6 million of those misdiagnoses as potentially dangerous to the patients.
A 1997 study conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Burton, director of autopsy pathology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, showed a patient misdiagnosis rate at 40%, with 10% to 12% of those errors [leading to patient loss of life](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/because-the-doctor-isnt-always-right/2/) . Other studies supported these findings.
Physician overconfidence is listed as the primary factor in 74% of those misdiagnoses, according to the American Journal of Medicine. It stated: “some physicians are “walking … in a fog of misplaced optimism” concerning their confidence, failing to critically examine their assumptions, beliefs, and conclusions (metacognition), and generally under appreciating the likelihood that their diagnoses are wrong.”
Dr. Mengele, I Presume?
Unfortunately, I was about to experience this phenomenon of doctor overconfidence as the dermatologist I had an appointment with was overconfident to the point of delusion. Very few times in my life have I ever had the misfortune of meeting someone as arrogant and unconcerned about me as this doctor was. He scarcely glanced at me when I entered, then lowered his head and began to write something as he stated that I suffered from Seborrheic Dermatitis, which is dermatitis caused by being allergic to your dandruff. With this being the case, according to him, my dermatitis was not work-related.
In stunned, disbelief, I asked him, why then did three doctors diagnose me with contact dermatitis? “They’re not dermatologists, they’re wrong,” he snapped. Then he proceeded with: “some patients, I ask questions on their condition, their family history and where they work, but I don’t need to with you.”
Then he began to fill out my prescriptions. As he was writing, I asked him about the time-loss form I needed to cover the two weeks of sick leave. He snapped: “when I was in the military, people came to me trying to get out of deployment because of skin conditions; I would always send them back into active duty because, why can’t you work with just a rash?”
The venom in his accusations was surprising because, at the time, my “just a rash” was swelling my right eye shut and covering most of the left side of my face. So I asked him how I could be expected to safely drive a forklift loaded with steel beams up to 24’ long and put them on racks up to 20’ in the air while surrounded by fellow workers and only being able to see out of one eye?
His answer? “That’s not my problem,” as he handed me my prescriptions and left the room.
At no time during the ”examination” did the doctor ask me a question about my symptoms, he never left his chair to examine me or to check to see if I had dandruff, nor would he even consider my condition as work-related.
Following his departure, I realized the implications of what had just happened. I was unemployed, had lost two weeks’ pay, and now faced paying future medical bills myself since the doctor had refused my claim. On the bright side, however, at least I was on the road to recovery as I picked up my prescriptions, or so I thought.
Living with a Misdiagnosis
He prescribed a shampoo for my hair, an ointment for my neck, and a cream for my face. The first time I tried the shampoo was an experience I will never forget. It was like pouring acid on my head. As the shampoo washed down my face and neck, it turned my skin a dark purplish color that began to burn and itch with an incredible intensity, which would only worsen as I had to leave it on all night.
So the nightly rituals had begun, I would wash my hair leaving in the shampoo, and the rash would spread further while burning worse every day. The ice packs I used would help for a little while but never long enough to reduce the swelling or the pain. By this time, the “rash” had spread over most of my face, including both eyes, and I was beginning to choke when I ate food. Because the dermatologist had rejected my worker’s comp claim, I had to go out and look for a job which, in spite of my looks, I found in a few weeks.
As I was looking for a different job, my conditions worsened, but due to the issues I had had with the previous dermatologist, I made an appointment with a different one. The second doctor proved to be helpful in some ways but would ultimately be another obstacle on my road to recovery.
I will end the second installment here. My condition would get much worse before it improved at all, but it did eventually improve because I knew there had to be solutions out there that did not include using petroleum-based chemicals to fight my petroleum allergies.