Where Did You Get It?

The H1N1 saga continues, not just in hospitals, clinics, and the media, but also in my office.

The other day, I saw a patient who works as an office manager for a group of pediatricians, and she was utterly overwhelmed, about H1N1. Since she is the office manager, she is in charge of dealing with all the phone calls demanding the vaccines. Apparently, her office has hundreds of names on the waiting list, but they have no idea when they will be given more vaccines. People are sending her hate mails, calling her and accusing her of giving the scarce vaccines to her friends and family.

Then, today, a father asked me if I was vaccinated, and if I got my kids vaccinated. I could have said, "Well, do you think I was vaccinated, why would you think that? Does it matter?" However, I felt that he just wanted to know, that as a mother and a physician, did I try to get my kids vaccinated. I said I did, and obviously, the next question was, "Where did you get it?"

Most of the time, I feel kind of sheepish admitting that I chose for my family to get our medical care at a very large HMO in our area. (I had also looked for a job with the said HMO...) Why sheepish? Because there are times that I feel like I am a sheep, or cattle, to be herded there. On the other hand, as healthy as we are, there really is very utility to get a fancy PPO plan. Of course, that meant when I was post delivery for Zoe, I shared a room with a Spanish speaking woman, and it was like watching Telemundo 24/7 for two days... Anyway, if there is something that this HMO does well, is getting people vaccinated. (Still, I know they ran out of various flu vaccines.)

I suppose what I am saying is this, I feel badly that we were able to get A&Z vaccinated. How bad will the flu season be? Well, it won't be good, but probably not as catastrophic as the media is making it.