The Neurosurgeon

Recently we had a patient who had part of his skull removed following an accident. In the aftermath of this, we called up the neurosurgeon who had performed the operation to make a follow-up appointment. The response of the receptionist at his office:

"Does he really need a follow up?"

"Um, you removed his skull, so yes, I would think so."

We basically had to beg and plead in order to get the neurosurgeon to see this guy. Finally, after a month, he got in for an appointment. We had been eagerly waiting to see what the neurosurgeon thought, because the patient had not been doing that well. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any notes returned to us from his visit. Finally, we found the following scribbled on the back of one of our many notes that we provided him:



First, what the hell does that say? Second, was it really that difficult to use a separate piece of paper? We even provided one that was supposed to be for his recommendations, but instead he chose to scribble it in a completely random place.

Admittedly, I've lost a lot of respect for neurosurgeons thanks to a certain presidential candidate, but I really feel like I would want to have more follow up with a patient if I took off part of his skull. It just seems like the basic minimum of reasonable patient care, right? You see a patient for a major surgery, so you schedule at least one follow-up visit. I mean, it's not brain surgery.