Doctor Dumbass

Dr. David Greenberg is one of the founding partners and president of Rhode Island Foot Care, Inc. I saw him three times in the winter of 2012. He had been referred by the doctor at Foundry sports medicine, where the Charcot foot had been first diagnosed. Liked the Foundry doctor and that practice. The sole negative I can say about the Foundry practice was that they recommended Greenberg. I heard Greenberg referred to as the best podiatrist in Rhode Island. Maybe that gave me unrealistic expectation. My GP had referred another patient to Greenberg at the checkout desk this spring. I shook my cast-boot covered foot at the patients, told them I referred to Greenberg as "Doctor Dumbass" and urged them to see the podiatrist I later experienced successful with, Thomas Mancini.
While I did not come to think of Greenberg as dumbass until the third visit, I really did not like him from the first. This was a basic consumer issue that I did not feel as though he really looked at the foot or listened to me. Supposedly he had looked over disks containing the MRI scan and X-ray before he entered the room. Am I wrong in thinking that was not enough without an on the spot exam? The MRI was a couple weeks old by that time and the X-ray was approaching four weeks past. The swelling had changed for the worse in that time, and the tendon in the foot had gained much more pronounced deformity. I left feeling as though I had paid for him to arrogantly confirm, "Yup, that’s Charcot foot," and nothing more. Between the Foundry doctor’s diagnosis and my research of the diagnosis, there wasn’t any doubt that Charcot was the problem. He gave advice of the best thing for my foot was to take care of my diabetes and sounded no different from every busybody with diabetic cousins who think the cousin makes them qualified to dispense advice about diabetes.
The second appointment got postponed by Greenberg’s office, and they indicated that one of his associates would see me o the follow up. I had no problem with that, and was disappointed when Greenberg saw me. He at least did look at the foot, in part because the swelling had receded on significant levels. He thought that was a good sign and did not correlate the prednisone eye drop prescription with the healing. My attitude: he is a doctor and should have suspected that, particularly because I mentioned it prominently; my tummy was rolling when I was there, and this had been the first time I had seen him after the retina reattachment surgery..
He was worse this time for being nice. He came across as patronizing, complete with a shoulder pat best reserved for little leaguers who hit a home run. I am not sure if his superior attitude or the prednisone is the true cause of my need to vomit before I left the office. I managed to contain the eruption to the medical waste barrel in the examining room.
The third (and guaranteed last ever) visit was in March. He declared the Phase One of the Charcot foot over and Stage Two healthily begun. He gave me a prescription for an in-the-shoe brace, a print out with choices of where to have it custom made, and no future appointment. Any actual examination was at best cursory.
He officially became "Doctor Dumbass" the day I went to get molded for the brace. The address on his printout had the wrong number on the right street. The orthopedic appliance place said they had moved twelve and had frequently asked Greenberg’s practice to update this. The prescription contained minimal information, and said nothing about the ankle collapse or how that problem had shortened my right leg.years before
The real kicker came in April, when (with the eye doctor’s approval) I stopped taking the prednisone. The leg swelled right back up, proving that Charcot’s Phase One had not passed, but had been disguised by the anti-inflammatory steroid.