A few years back I wrote about the death of my long time primary care provider, Dr. Major. I ended up selecting another doctor from the same practice as him, but I was never really satisfied with the change.

At first I simply assumed that it was the change, I was so used to having the same doctor, one I felt especially comfortable with for over 25 years, that it would take awhile to adjust, but eventually I had to face the truth. I simply didn’t like the new doctor.

A couple examples. The new doc asked me why I was taking baby aspirin, and I couldn’t recall the reason at the moment, so the next time I saw my cardiologist I asked him to let my new doc know the reason. Which he did.

The next time I saw the new doc, I asked him if he got the note from my cardiologist, and he looked blank. So he called in the nurse and asked her. She came back a couple minutes later and had printed out the note, which was apparently a fairly detailed explanation not only of why I was prescribed the aspirin but of several other factors about my heart condition. The note was right there in my chart but the new doc had not bothered to read it.

On that same visit he began to ask me a series of questions and I realized these were questions he had asked previously about my diet. Didn’t he keep a record on my chart? It wasn’t as if my condition had changed, he was asking as though he had never seen me before.

Plus, I always got the feeling from him that he never checked my lab results until I showed up in the office. Dr. Major had always sent me a note, just a one liner, to let me know that he had reviewed them and that they were either good or that I needed to work on my cholesterol.

I resolved to ask to have my primary care doctor changed.

But before I could do that, I received a message from that medical practice that they were disbanding as of the end of February.

To tell the truth, this was not a big surprise. Ever since Dr. Major had died, that practice had been going downhill. Every time I went there, the nurses and other support personnel had changed. All last summer their AC was on the fritz.

So I needed to find a new doctor.

I got a recommendation for one at the Mazzoni Center, so I made an appointment there, but the doctor in question was not taking new patients. So I took the first person they suggested, who happened to be a woman PA.

I had my first appointment on Monday.

I was very pleased with how everything went. There was hardly any waiting time at all. A stark contrast to just about every other doctor I see here in Philly. The PA was great. She asked all the right questions, and I filled her in on what I thought she needed to be filled in on. 

When I made the appointment, I told the scheduler that my old medical practice would be closing down within a couple weeks, so if they wanted to get my medical records, they needed to do it quickly. Apparently they did, as they had all my medications, and everything else that seemed relevant, so I was relieved that decades of my medical history was not lost.

As a bonus, they do their own bloodwork, so there’s no need to make an appointment at a different place just to get my blood taken.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the Mazzoni Center. I’m only sorry I didn’t transfer there sooner.