Providence Scholls

On December 29 2011 i spoke on the phone with Julian Mart, in Seattle. At the time, i thought he fixed his immigration status, but recently i found out he is on a Pulitzer type of visa.

That day i was feeling ill, some trouble breathing, some anxiety attack. He mentioned on the phone he is on another line with "the doctor" and put a heavy accent on that word. I attributed that to his foster care business at his home where he takes care of elderly people.

Later in the evening the symptoms got worse and i decided to go to Providence Scholls. I went and checked in and went to buy some potassium gluconate supplements at the nearby Walgreen's. I think i had in and out atrial fibrillation due to lack of potassium. I noticed there was a black limo in the parking lot and a guy in the waiting room dressed in some sort of unusual, shining leather jacket that seemed young, restless and full of life and not the sick type you usually find in those places throwing at me some sort of arrogant looks and smiles.

When i opened the bottle with the potassium gluconate i just bought, a woman came and called me. She took me to an area where an assistant took my vitals signs. I noticed she was not looking at me while talking, just at the blood pressure and oxygen level monitors, and she asked me again if i really wanted to check in. In a way she seemed familiar to me. Very young, darker skin with some sort of heavy make-up. Later i thought she was looking a lot like Niki Minaj.

So i went in, undressed, put on a gown and the doctor showed up. She introduced herself as dr.Bertani, Emilly. She seemed very young, maybe too young to be a doctor, like in her late 20s. She was kinda hardly trying not to laugh, smiling all the time. She went straight to the computer, asked the usual questions and put the data in. I asked her if she knew dr.Weeks, the doctor i last saw in that clinic, a year before. She said she was there for a very short time, she doesn't know all the doctors. (Please click again on the Providence Scholls link above. You will see the doctors that are working right now in that clinic. Do you think if she was a new doctor in there she wouldn't know them all?).

Among other things that happened in there, one thing caught my attention, although i was feeling really sick and distracted by my symptoms. When she used her stethoscope, she was barely touching me with it, not talking about holding it and listening to anything. My wife is a medical assistant, we have several stethoscopes at home and i learned to used them, including manually checking blood pressure and listening and comparing heart's sounds with those found on several sites on internet. In fact, i remember i told her that i have stethoscopes at home but i don't like to listen to my own heart because i freak out or something like that and she laughed nervously.

Then in the end i used the word breath referring to me breathing hardly and hyperventilating and i think she intentionally mistook the word for breasts and took a sort of embarrassed pose. However, in the end she told me compassionately that i should take care of what she refereed to as "chronic problems". Probably with references to my alleged psychiatric problems in the past.

I went home. About an hour later, i realized she might not have a doctor after all. In fact, she looked a lot like the celebrity known as Lady Gaga.

When i realized that, i decided to go to the ER at Providence St.Vincent hospital. I didn't know at the time what was happening to me and i though maybe it was better so. But driving i thought i was getting better and i was undecided. When at the last stop sign before the hospital, still undecided, some guy driving behind me flashed me with his high beam and i don't know why, that was the final push towards the decision not to go. So i turned back home.

For the last few days i head an ongoing conversation with the Oregon Board of Medicine Licensing. I am intrigued by the fact that they do not have doctors' photographs on their Verification of Licensure page. In Oregon, there have been at least one notorious case of a doctor working without license, dr.Patil. As a coincidence, my wife's ex-oncologist name is Patil.

A few days after i went to Providence Scholls and took a picture at the board at the entrance with the list of doctors. No dr. Bertani in there. I think there was no dr.Bertani working for Providence Scholls, ever.