Share review of Milton Keynes Hospital

Milton Keynes Hospital 2018-10-17 Person 2 5 0

I recently attended an appointment with a stroke specialist, Dr Benham, on referral from my GP, to address recent 'attacks' of stroke symptoms I have begun to have over the past week. I suffered a stroke at the beginning of September that in general I have recovered well from, so the onset of these new, more severe symptoms were concerning. I had hoped to share these concerns with the doctor and work with him to better understand why I might be experiencing them, what might have caused them to suddenly begin after a month of no symptoms since the stroke itself, and what options there were for further investigating these causes and more effectively targeting treatment so I could avoid these attacks and feel safe to resume a normal life. In the end the doctor provided some help referring me to other specialists who I'm hopeful will aid in this process, but during the appointment both I and my husband who was accompanying me found the doctor to be quite rude and disrespectful to both of us. Throughout the appointment he constantly asked us questions such as 'why have you been put on this medication? Why did your GP refer you to me?' but when we tried to answer these questions he would interrupt us and talk over us almost immediately. We tried to explain our primary concerns and he reasons we were meeting with him, as we saw them, only to feel like our concerns were repeatedly cast aside and ignored. From our perspective it felt as though he was making up his mind on critical issues very quickly and without hearing us out, then refusing us any chance to provide further information that we felt might be important to my case. My hope is that the referrals to other specialists will ultimately provide the care that I am seeking in order to resume a normal life, but our meeting with Dr Benham left both my husband and me feeling frustrated, ignored and like concerns of great importance to us had been dismissed out of hand.