Replies

Hey Pea,

I had my gallbladder removed in Paris some years ago while on a business trip. I had a severe attack lasting hours in my hotel. The hotel sent a doctor to my room. He diagnosed my problem as stomach flu. I told him that it was something more serious.

At my insistence he sent me to a place to get an ultrasound image taken. There were several pregnant women there getting ultrasounds of their babies. They looked at me strangely. I was sprawled out horizontally on some of the chairs in an attempt to get comfortable. The ultrasound showed that I had a large gallstone The doctor apologized for his earlier diagnosis and sent me to the American Hospital in Paris, which may well be the best hospital in Paris.

I was glad that was where I was being sent. This is the place the sheiks come to get medical treatment. They apparently come to the American Hospital in Paris for medical treatment rather than to other French hospitals, but I’ve not seen statistics on where the sheiks go.

I do not remember the nationality of the doctor who operated on me. I only met him briefly, but I was almost out of it in pain at the time. He did speak English. I looked just now at the papers recently published by members of the hospital staff. Based on their last names, most of the doctors who authored the papers appear not to be Americans, but they could well have been trained in the United States.

I had a fever, so the hospital doctor thought I should have the gallstone removed there in Paris quickly, rather than having me fly home to the States to have it removed there.

Anyway, the operation was successful. The gallstone they removed was an inch in diameter. I had to stay in a hotel in Paris for about nine days afterward until my incision healed enough for me to fly home. This was before robotic procedures were developed to remove gallstones through very small incisions. My operation left a large scar across my abdomen.

About a year after the gallbladder and stone removal I developed a large hernia on the incision scar. The surgeon at home who repaired that hernia shook his head that the Paris doctors had only sewed up one layer of muscle at the incision rather than two layers of muscle as he would have done.

The French nurses were something else. When I was taking a shower, they would come in and suddenly open the shower curtain. Maybe that practice would enliven the care we get in our prudish American hospitals.

On checking out of the hospital in Paris I sat waiting about 30-40 minutes while the check out lady on the staff just ignored me and handled other later arrivals at the discharge office. That was the only time I have ever seen rudeness from a French person. Finally, in desperation, I asked one of the other people in the office so that the rude lady would hear, that I was doctor so and so (well I am, but a PhD, not an MD), and I wanted to check out of the hospital and pay my bill. I’m pretty mild mannered and wouldn’t have ordinarily spoken up like I did later, but I had politely told the rude lady when I arrived that I wanted to check out. My later frustrated statement to others got the rude lady’s attention, and she immediately started processing me out, perhaps fearing that a “doctor” like me might tell the French doctors of her behavior.

That was my experience with the semi-French health care system at the American Hospital in Paris.