Rothman and Loung MDs

I want to try my best not to name names. For this place, Rothman and Loung MDs is the name of the place and that is what I will go by.

This family practice clinic brings medicine the best philosophy that can be taught in Medicine - Absolute health. When you go here, they will give you a first time visitor information and in there, you will see a statement of what they go by. They go by health in every aspect of your life, which includes the psychological. They seem to stand by this more than other clinics. They will try to think outside of the box. The best way to look at a patient is to try to know about the patient in all ways, and to not be narrow-minded. I commend them for this.

During my visit, the doctor did all the important physical exams. Here is where my bias will come in - I am not comfortable with male doctors and avoid them sometimes and so I will try to speak of their positives even though they make me uncomfortable. Well, for this visit, the doctor was testing for trauma, because I was involved in an accident and was scared that he might crush my ribs! He asked if it hurt, and I said it was a bit uncomfortable. At least he knew I was ok, because it was any real pain where I cried out. So despite how much he scared me by putting so much force onto my ribs, he broke no ribs and there weren't any previously broken ones.

The doctor gave me my diagnosis and helped explore what issues I might be facing. I appreciated everything they had done for me. The doctor recommended some medicine for the pain and sent me off. I should have gotten a referral, but it was probably affected from discussing my financial status. Based on the fact that I couldn't afford any specialists, he did not refer me one. I guess he knew I wouldn't go.

If you do not mind a male doctor, they do their best here at what they specialize in - Family practice - which in certain ways, means they know all of the general things that can be seen and felt without a biopsy and other labs. I saw a someone's review on one of the doctors where they were very angry to not have obtained a diagnosis there. They were referred to a dermatologist about a skin rash. Skin rashes can be caused by many many different things from drugs to bugs to autoimmune. Some types may be easily identified, but I do not expect a family doctor to just recognize any given rash. If one has been practicing for years and is looking at psoriasis - I would expect them to know it from appearance. However, somethings are best to be left for the specialist if you want to be safe. I can't speak for the patient who complained about what they had, but a second opinion is optional and may give validity to be upset. However, for something like just a rash - and no clues in their history, I do think it depends on the rash, what it looks like, where it presents, associated symptoms, if it is painful or pruritic, and etc.

They do what they can to their ability and will refer you to ensure maximum treatment. I would not expect them to know everything and be geniuses but will do as much as they can to get you a diagnosis, which includes sending you to a specialist who knows better.

University of Washington- Hall Health Primary Care Center

Hall Health, as the students say at the University, gets an overall positive rating from me. My rating is based on the center as a whole, and no individual departments (There's the travel clinic where you can get shots to protect you in different regions of the world, there's the nurse consultants, and family health. There are a couple experiences I've had here and I'm not sure it is more worthwhile to combine these experiences or make separate very short postings so one could more easily choose to read one over the other. Well for now, I will just write whatever spills out.

Upon arriving, of course, this place is located on the school campus, and not too hard to see. There will be a sign in front of the building. Once you enter, like other clinic settings, you won't be exactly sure where to turn and who to go to. Well you will find it soon - they have a set up sort of like a bank to get efficient help when there are many waiting in line.

My first experience was a funny one because they decided to check my eyesight - the guy asked me if I wore glasses. I said I don't wear them because I don't really need them. What I meant was, that my doctors used to tell me that my eyes weren't perfect but weren't as bad as to where I required wearing glasses. I got them eventually for big lectures for when I can't read the board. Anyway, I never wore the glasses. So the guy at the clinic tested my eyes from the big chart with the lit background. I failed pretty bad. I tried reading the lower lines and just gave up when I had to keep moving up to the bigger letters. After that, this guy laughed at me at replied, "you don't need glasses huh?" Well nevertheless, he moved me on and never referred me to an "eye" doctor. I didn't care and shrugged it off. Not correcting my vision was not the end of the world. I was not driving then, and I had glasses that I just wasn't wearing.

A good perk this clinic has is free consultation. Of course they also have a free first visit for first timers, but you must be a UW student. While I was a student there, this benefit was good for every semester. I am not sure if that is the case now.

Anyways, what I really don't want to leave out is my second big visit to this center, which involved a thorough work up from the Nurse Practitioner there. I was sick that day. Of course it was finals week and I was stressed out. I had gone through one test already and was studying for the others when I got a bit sick. I went to the nurse because I thought something was wrong with me. So they asked me a lot of relevant questions - one point for asking questions! I was not the most honest with them, which was bad, but it saved me time to go back to studying. Anyhow, the nurse was very friendly, and did a physical relative to my complaints. At the end, she explained to me what she thought logically and wrote me a slip for the teacher to get out of school for the next day. I was very happy with their understanding and doing an efficient examination for me.

To explain how somethings were and were not done here are many reasons why there were no expensive lab tests performed: It was a one time incident that I went to get help for a common complaint, it was not the emergency room which means the patient believes it is an emergency so the physician must treat it like an emergency and something very important, and I couldn't afford expensive tests. With that said, a good work up can be done without many expensive tests and lab work. That said, I believe the people here did a good job in finding that I was overall healthy that day. Because I went to the clinic immediately and it was a first time thing for me to visit the clinic for my complaint, advice would be to return if there are more symptoms, if I do not get better, if it gets worse. I was basically told to let them know if I had any complaints again, and I went on my way.

I was definitely happy with the experience and how I was treated by the nurse. I felt like she took me seriously and she wanted to help me.