Avery Brown

Review of UNC Campus Health Services

I had two terrible experiences here and do not rec...

I had two terrible experiences here and do not recommend.

On the first experience, a doctor kept insisting something ridiculous and then claimed that it was probably just something I never noticed before when I came in for a rapid and painful growth. Her attitude seemed be "why are you even here." Since I am not a doctor, I do not have medical expertise and do not know which conclusions I need to make. A doctor should not belittle your reasons for coming. Nor should they make you feel that uncomfortable. Nor should they fail to provide reasons (or at least emphasize the lack of research done in that area). That contradicts their job title.

After deciding to never visit that doctor again, I went back to another doctor for a lump I noticed in my throat while yawning and looking in a mirror. Same exact treatment. The doctor dismissively asked me "What are you worried about?" That is the question you should be answering, but if I were to do a google search on lumps in throats, I am sure I could find plenty of results to be worried. This doctor made me even more uncomfortable than the last when she had me gag to demonstrate the lump to a colleague of hers. I am the one who is already quite uncomfortable as I gag in front of two stranger looking down my throat. When her colleague acted as if this was the weirdest thing to be doing, said she couldn't see it, but said she was sure it was fine, and then dismissively left, I felt extremely uncomfortable. I would rather not have you looking down my throat as you gag and I would rather you be using an endoscope. I agree that it is pretty weird of me to be put in this position, but I do think, the doctor's job is to make me more comfortable. Not to be the reason I'm uncomfortable. So then when she said it was nothing to be worried about, I asked what exactly that lump was and all she could really say was I don't know. I just don't know what to do with that. I also mentioned that the previous growth had seemed to increase and was met with a "How could you know that?" Of course, that is a subjective observation. I am not measuring things out as if my body is a scientific experiment, but I was once again confused as to why I had to defend myself.

On my end, I visited the doctor for a lump in my throat as well as a rapid, painful growth. As far as I know, those are valid concerns. And I genuinely have a very busy schedule this semester, so I had to try hard to make time for these visits and just felt so uncomfortable and belittled afterwards. Never again... Almost makes me want to stop pursuing medicine...