May 22nd I went to an ENT due to “fullness” in my ear and tinnitus. He found that my cochlea was fine, but I had a moderate neurosensory loss in that ear. His advice was come back in a year for another audiogram. I looked around for an otologist who would give me an MRI because I knew from my audiology classes in college that an AN was a real possibility. He agreed to give me an MRI but told me that he was sure I didn’t have an AN because they were rare. This Monday I had my MRI and the acoustic nerve took the dye, so the otologist called and asked me to bring him the CD (the MRI center wouldn’t send it) but told me over the phone that it could be an AN or the nerve could just be inflamed and he’d need to look at the films himself and that it wasn’t serious but shouldn’t be ignored and we should repeat the MRI in a few months. I’ll wait to see what he says after he views the CD, but sounds like I have just become an official member of the club (even if he’s not willing to admit it till he sees the scan – has anyone even heard of an inflamed auditoryvestibular nerve?), and I’ll now be looking for a doctor willing to admit that ANs do exist. So, here’s my question.
How do you tell if someone is a good doctor? Some people talk about picking a doctor they like, but as a point of fact, I do not like my gastroenterologist at all and I can’t abide the way he talks to his staff, but he’s technically very good and the only gastroenterologist who has ever been able to give me a colonoscopy because my colon is so twisted. And for something like an AN technically good is more important to me than bedside manner (though both would be nice). Some people talk about looking at the doctor’s results (if you can find them) though I had a friend in computer tech support who was 3rd tier (2 other people had to have been unable to solve your problem before you could talk to him) and his statistics (number of problems he solved a day) were low because he only got hard-to-solve problems so it is possible that a good doctor would see more serious cases and perhaps his statistics would not be as good as a doctor who was not as good. I guess the only thing that makes sense to me is the number of ANs a doctor deals with, and since I live in New Jersey, I’ll call NYU Langhorne and try to make an appointment once my doctor will admit I have an AN (if indeed I do). Anyone with experience at NYU or any place else in the NY metropolitan/Philadelphia area I’d be glad to hear your opinions on doctors.
