I made a recent appointment with a male urologist and was disappointed after waiting a few weeks that I was assigned to a PA that worked for him. There was no preliminary nurse involved to go over my referral papers, so the receptionist dropped me off in the office and said she'll be right with you. I was taken aback because I had an appointment with a male urologist I had met during one of his seminars at a local hospital.
Jennifer came in shortly and did a test to see how much urine remained in my bladder after urinating. She actually observed me in the small bathroom and put a lid on the jar before she had me lie down on a table and run something around on my lower stomach area to determine how much urine I retained in the bladder. It wasn't that Jennifer wasn't efficient or pretty, or anything like that, the issue I had was that I wanted to discuss some personal issues with a urologist that knew more about the changes a man has as he ages.
Nevertheless, I confessed I was having some dripping problems and great urgency issues along with some difficulties maintaining an erection during sex and the feeling was less intense than it had always been before. She proceeded to check my prostate and determined that felt good, and I wanted to reply that it felt good to me, too, but I decided that might be out of line. I confessed I also had a yeast infection on my penis shaft that I had seen a dermatologist about. I explained I have treated it with two medications and at times it looks bad and at times it's all but gone.
Jennifer asked if she could see, and when I lowered my pants, my penis had a uniform red ring around the shaft about like a medium sized rubber band, and the glan area exhibited the same yeast infection as usual. The long and short of it all was that I needed to see the urologist.
What galled me was the fact that I had to make another appointment to see the doctor to get responses to my questions, and basically he agreed many of the issues I observed were common in men my age, but he felt a supply of pills could be used to help get and retain a firm erection.
I guess my question is should a specialist have a new patient seen by a PA in this circumstance?