Nova Southeastern University Family Medicine

First, the positives. When you go for a preventative check-​up («wellness visit») you receive blood work on site, and then a thorough set of recommendations. You are seen by your attending physician and both residents and interns, so you get more than one set of eyes and ears. Those yearly check-​ups and well-​woman visits are all I can recommend them to do well, unfortunately. You will never see that attending again, and when you have a problem and make an appointment, you will see a different resident most times. I have not had good experiences with their residents. In one case, I was given an x-​ray in lieu of a colonoscopy, etc. and was told by the resident that she started out with the most economical alternative to ensure my insurance company would approve of it. She later denied she couched things in economic terms, but she did, indeed. I was taken aback, and shared that interaction with the gastroenterologist I later sought out, and he was equally amazed that getting my insurance company’s approval (and Nova’s reimbursement, I surmise) was ever a consideration. He found the problem, whereas the Nova resident was treating me for the symptom, only. Then, last week, I returned to see a resident who prescribed an antibiotic which has had no effect, and did what I consider to be an incomplete exam of my throat. I have another appointment with an ENT specialist, wasting more of my time and money. My last complaint has to do with the fact that, perhaps to give more students experience with medical conditions, they infantilize the patient, and insist that the patient has no knowledge of his/​her medical conditions and needs to return much sooner than another doctor might do. For instance, I have been taking a medication for years, am thoroughly familiar with the side effects and how it affects me, and in the past, have received a prescription to last me through the year. The Nova resident consulted with an unseen attending and returned, telling me that she could not give me refills for a year because, «We like to see how the patient is doing on the medication.» Again, great for wellness visits but I would not see them for anything more complicated.