The Orthopedic Partners

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Today I visited Dr. Rosenberg for the first time to discuss a possible torn meniscus (according to TOSH injury assessment) and that I will be traveling to Costa Rica where I will be hiking 15 or so miles a day. I wanted to know what I could do to prevent further injury and what exactly was wrong with my knee. A bit of background info, I am 5'4" and 200 lbs. so by a BMI calculator I am obese, I am aware of this. However, A little over a year ago, I decided to take my health into my own hands and have lost 40 lbs. I work out 5-6 times a week (primarily weight training, but incorporating 2 hours of cardio) and eat a high lean protein and high vegetable diet. I allow myself one cheat meal a week. I am proud of the muscle definition I have developed and that I have dropped almost 20% body fat. Am I where I need to be? No. Am I doing my best to live a healthy lifestyle and to change? Yes.

With that in mind I arrived at the office, filled out some paperwork, sat in the wait room for an excessive amount of time, finally got called back and got some x-rays done and waited for the doctor. Funny enough I was showing my father my calf definition prior to the doctor coming in and I was talking about how proud I was to be working this hard for myself. Upon arriving the doctor didn't introduce himself and immediately went into how the cartilage in my knee was wearing down due to weight. He talked about this for approximately 4 minutes, as he is moving around my leg he feels the need to make the comment of "You're too intelligent to be obese, you do realize you are obese?" Feeling attacked because for one, he know's nothing of my intelligence and used it as a way of giving a back handed compliment so I responded with "I know, I've lost 40 lbs though and am working on it." He responds with "Then you must have been extremely obese." For the length of my visit there (approximately 30-45 minutes) he continued to lecture me about my weight, telling me I need to become a vegetarian, need to stop lifting weights, need to only do yoga and cardio, that Vietnamese women are happy because they are slender and eat a more alkaline diet, and was incredibly condescending the entire time. I've never been more appalled by a medical professionals bed side manner. He was one of the rudest people I have ever encountered and I cannot comprehend how he earned his medical license. There is no correcting this situation. I will forever remember what he said to me. The emotional scarring of something like this to a young woman's self esteem is irreversible. I understand that my weight is an issue for my knee's, however, I am not less of a human being because of it. He acted as though his "superior" lifestyle was my only solution. Making comments on how high my blood pressure must be, acting accusatory that I don't eat vegetables, judging me for being a woman and lifting weights (according to him, women are not supposed to be muscular and if I were a Samoan man he would have told me differently), and making comments about how obese I am. I have never felt worse about myself in my entire life. Not to mention, when my blood pressure came back as 117/78 he made absolutely no comment or apology for his previous accusations. My father had a much different experience with him and is also slightly obese. This leads me to feel as though he must be a misogynist or that his beliefs of how a female should look is the building block of how he chooses to practice medicine when seeing female patients. I got very little information in regards to my injured knee, however, I received a wounded pride and emotional scarring.