My cardiologist shouted at me today

I had a follow-up appointment this afternoon with my cardiologist for POTS-like symptoms. This is only the second time I’ve seen him, and he consistently raised his voice to the point of shouting at me and my husband (who accompanied me to to the visit) every time I either asked a question or when I would try to extend a comment he made for further clarification. I also had questions about the conclusions of my recent TTT that he couldn’t answer or didn’t come prepared to answer, though I had messaged his team with a heads up that I wanted a licensed provider to explain my results to me at my next appointment (the EP’s report was abysmal with no interpretation of my results, just that there was no evidence of “significant dysautonomia”). I’ve shared my results with a number of MDs familiar with POTS, who are dumbfounded by the EP’s conclusions, but that’s for another day.

I’m not entirely shocked by the cardiologist’s behavior because my first visit was just tolerable—he raised his voice at several occasions and sometimes got defensive, but he overall appeared to believe that my symptoms weren’t just in my head and the recommendations he gave were very helpful. I decided that I was lucky enough that he didn’t think I was making things up and that he was mildly educated about POTs. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have gone back.

Shouting at patients is NEVER okay, and I want everyone on here to know that if this is happening to you, this isn’t an isolated experience. You do NOT need tolerate abuse just because a provider believes you aren’t nuts. If you have the capacity, get a second opinion, file a complaint, write an honest review. These assholes seem to forget that patients contribute to their salaries and that respect goes both ways. All I could think about after my appointment was the extent to which staff in that office has heard him yell at patients, and also how how they themselves have likely been yelled at by him. I’m not going back there because nobody needs a dysregulated dumbass for a specialist.

UPDATE: Thank you to all for your support. I wrote this at 2:00 am after having sent a ton of emails to the hospital (Patient Relations/Risk Management), my university about the visit, and my GP. Since this was at a university hospital, I even filed a Title IX and they got back to me in less than 12 hours. In addition, he also wrote inaccurate notes that I am now "able to work and give presentations" (I'm a PhD candidate), but that is not what I said--I said I have made gains in my ability to present at conferences, but with a substantial hit to my productivity and that I need a ton of accommodations to just coast, and that I have new symptoms like brain fog that have settled in at almost 7 months post-infection. I NEVER said "I am now able to work". This morning, Patient Relations emailed me back and I filed a formal complaint with the hospital over the phone with them. I am now contacting my insurance company to see what can be done.

UPDATE #2: I just met with Title IX, and they say that this issue is absolutely under their jurisdiction since this occured within a university health system. The hospital's Patient Relations rep told me that "Title IX is for students"--turns out this is categorically untrue. At this point in time, any and every employee that works at the university is subject to Title IX, and you do NOT have to be a student to report an employee to Title IX.