Cary Wheeler's Online Review Report Card

She is courteous and listens well. However she does not volunteer information. I asked specifically about a couple of things thyroid and kidneys she was going to test on the blood test and mentioned I was concerned about type 1 diabetes as I have already tested positive elsewhere for pancreas islet cell antibodies but she did not tell me how she was going to test for type 1 diabetes vs. type 2. She is very busy so when I later thought to ask the staff at the clinic said I may not get that answered unless I made another appointment. At the second appointment she informed me that that clinic does not test for type 1 diabetes even in children I was so dumbfounded by this answer that I did not ask the obvious followup question Well wherehow DOES one get tested for type 1 diabetes? Granted LADA latent autoimmune diabetes in adults is rarer than type 2 but it is underdiagnosed in adults because doctors dont expect it. I dont fit the profile for type 2 by the way. She also failed to check into the cause of my more pronounced ankle swelling that has been going on for the last month or so and the pulsatile tinnitus that suddenly got much louder at about the same time. In fact she did not even look at my ankles but just assumed it was from varicose veins because I mentioned I thought SOME of it was due to that. She didnt look at my leg veins either. On the other hand I still have blood pressure in the normal range so I probably dont have a blocked artery but Id still like to know whats going on. Maybe the blood test will show something awful or not. Well see. And for the noise in my head she referred me to an audiologist. To my way of thinking an ear nose and throat specialist would be more likely to give me a useful diagnosis. I dont seem to be deaf yet and I certainly dont need a hearing aid. I would rather be proactive than reactive but apparently not so this doctor. She is not the first in this clinic to give me this impression so I wonder what the clinics policies might be about avoiding unnecessary testing. Or am I receiving agerelated prejudice? I come from longlived parents and grandparents. Dad is still alive. Im nowhere near the end yet. I have a highdeductible insurance plan so I might as well go back to a more functionallyminded doctor... Anyway if you happen to have one of the ailments that this doctor and clinic are used to treating or you already have a diagnosis youll probably do fine with her. I had several other health problems that would have been nice to update the clinic on since I had been at Kaiser for the previous two years but their health intake form didnt have a space for other and related comments. And I wasnt expecting the clinic to help with those particular issues but I thought they might want to know about them. In hindsight I dont think the clinic or the doctor really does want to know about my overall state of health. They probably wouldnt offer anything useful anyway because most of it may be connected to Lyme for which antibodies I previously tested positive and conventional doctors dont know what to do with possible chronic Lyme and tickrelated coinfections if they believe such things even exists. But I chose this clinic because it is the only one in my little town and if I do something like stub my toe very badly I dont want to have to drive down to Santa Rosa.

Cary was patient kind and gave me fantastic advice that helped with my problem.

This doctor must have a pulse But she is so taciturn so inexpressive removed hand utterly lacking in any kind of empathy. She mostly focuses on the computer in the room. Her communication skills are desperately wanting. The clinic itself is imploding under the draconian new rules set down by a new on site administrator. I HATE the 15 minute appointments for all patients. It does NOT work for doctors or patients. She has actually run out of the room while Im still speaking BAD

It was a brief visit but I liked her. I was not presenting her with a diagnostic challenge at the time so I cannot say how well she figures out what the patient needs. She did listen well.