An American in Eindhoven
Not many of you will recognize the cinematographic association which I have used in today's post title, so I will give you a clue. The movie title that I am paraphrasing is "An American in Paris".
Even though Eindhoven has nothing to associate itself to the world famous French capital, this story is about being American and being confronted with the strange and sometimes hardly understandable world across the ocean, wherever this place across the ocean may be.
This place happens to be Eindhoven in my (true) story and the American happens to be my boss.
You can never say that you really know the Netherlands before you have experienced first hand their education and healthcare systems. For a business traveler there is typically little chance to get into contact with any of the two unless you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night in your hotel room and you realize that you have a raging bladder infection. And this is exactly what happened.
Being a renowned critic and for unfortunate reasons a connoisseur of the system I was not surprised to be asked to help out on this one.
The strength of Americans is that they are simple and linear thinking, she was sick she needed antibiotics, she wanted antibiotics. My old world conscience (even though just awake) told me that this was not going to be as simple a task as it sounded.
It was very early in the morning so my attack strategy wasn't extremely sharp from step one. Indeed my first move was to contact the Huisartsenpost (after hours house doctor) only to be laughed at for calling in with a simple bladder infection.
I found out something new though, foreigners can be treated by regular house doctors. Step two get to the house doctor without an appointment.
Since it was very early in the morning time was on our side, being there at opening time would greatly increase our chances to be helped straight away.
Coming from an over-medicalized society my patient had a perfect understanding of her condition and of the appropriate remedy needed. Coming myself from an hypochondriac society I totally sympathized with that.
We got there fifteen minutes before opening time, the assistant was already there which gave me the chance to expose my case and to ask for a sterile container. My case was clear but the sterile container could only be given at opening time. The rules would not be bent even for an insisting imperialistic bladder.
But how stupid of me to think that we would be allowed to actually see a doctor, the assistant adamantly refused to follow the plead of the clearly "know it all" American and prescribed us a very narrow spectrum antibiotic, which later on appeared to be only on sale in the Netherlands .
I had a gut feeling that this one was not going to work, and this feeling turned into certainty when I saw my boss the day after at the office. I picked up the phone to plead the case again, but no go, no fever no alternative cure.
The system is the system, adapt OR die. Well in case of the Dutch system it would be better to say adapt AND die.
Another day passes and things look only worse, I pick up the phone again and this time I will not take no for an answer. They ask me again about fever and I almost shout "forget about the fever, she is sick as a dog, this antibiotic is clearly not working". This gets us into the doctor's office, who after a couple of unnecessary tests prescribes us the antibiotic which was requested in the first place. And you know what, it was even considerably cheaper!
I do not have enough space here to explain to you the whole "broad spectrum antibiotics are evil" campaign going on here, I will keep it for another time.
Being in possession of the right medication had an immediate effect on the battered and bruised patient whose only wish was of course to get the hell out of here.
Let's hope she says nothing about this to Trump otherwise we can forget about "Netherlands second".
By the way in case you should be worrying about my job I better tell you that I have full permission to divulge these details.
Even though Eindhoven has nothing to associate itself to the world famous French capital, this story is about being American and being confronted with the strange and sometimes hardly understandable world across the ocean, wherever this place across the ocean may be.
This place happens to be Eindhoven in my (true) story and the American happens to be my boss.
You can never say that you really know the Netherlands before you have experienced first hand their education and healthcare systems. For a business traveler there is typically little chance to get into contact with any of the two unless you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night in your hotel room and you realize that you have a raging bladder infection. And this is exactly what happened.
Being a renowned critic and for unfortunate reasons a connoisseur of the system I was not surprised to be asked to help out on this one.
The strength of Americans is that they are simple and linear thinking, she was sick she needed antibiotics, she wanted antibiotics. My old world conscience (even though just awake) told me that this was not going to be as simple a task as it sounded.
It was very early in the morning so my attack strategy wasn't extremely sharp from step one. Indeed my first move was to contact the Huisartsenpost (after hours house doctor) only to be laughed at for calling in with a simple bladder infection.
I found out something new though, foreigners can be treated by regular house doctors. Step two get to the house doctor without an appointment.
Since it was very early in the morning time was on our side, being there at opening time would greatly increase our chances to be helped straight away.
Coming from an over-medicalized society my patient had a perfect understanding of her condition and of the appropriate remedy needed. Coming myself from an hypochondriac society I totally sympathized with that.
We got there fifteen minutes before opening time, the assistant was already there which gave me the chance to expose my case and to ask for a sterile container. My case was clear but the sterile container could only be given at opening time. The rules would not be bent even for an insisting imperialistic bladder.
But how stupid of me to think that we would be allowed to actually see a doctor, the assistant adamantly refused to follow the plead of the clearly "know it all" American and prescribed us a very narrow spectrum antibiotic, which later on appeared to be only on sale in the Netherlands .
I had a gut feeling that this one was not going to work, and this feeling turned into certainty when I saw my boss the day after at the office. I picked up the phone to plead the case again, but no go, no fever no alternative cure.
The system is the system, adapt OR die. Well in case of the Dutch system it would be better to say adapt AND die.
Another day passes and things look only worse, I pick up the phone again and this time I will not take no for an answer. They ask me again about fever and I almost shout "forget about the fever, she is sick as a dog, this antibiotic is clearly not working". This gets us into the doctor's office, who after a couple of unnecessary tests prescribes us the antibiotic which was requested in the first place. And you know what, it was even considerably cheaper!
I do not have enough space here to explain to you the whole "broad spectrum antibiotics are evil" campaign going on here, I will keep it for another time.
Being in possession of the right medication had an immediate effect on the battered and bruised patient whose only wish was of course to get the hell out of here.
Let's hope she says nothing about this to Trump otherwise we can forget about "Netherlands second".
By the way in case you should be worrying about my job I better tell you that I have full permission to divulge these details.
okay - very funny...you did the story complete and total justice...signed, the boss
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