As a practicing internist, I was disturbed to read the essay "A Reluctant Doctor Shopper" by June Bingham [1]. I was particularly disturbed because an organization such as the American College of Physicians chose to publish an article that was so flagrantly biased and unfair to the author's private physician. As a physician who tries to be responsive to patients, I could empathize with the physician that Ms. Bingham was chastising, because I felt that her demands were both unfair and unrealistic. Among these unrealistic demands were the following:

1. The author asked that a medical problem of significant concern to her be diagnosed over the telephone rather than in person.

2. The author called her physician at home, and "his teenager took the message. He never called back." Once again, she is assuming that her physician got the message. He may not have. In addition, I am sure he had physician coverage available. The author should not have called him at home but rather should have called his office and spoken with the covering physician on call.

3. When the author did not get better, she did not call her physician's office but rather "a friend, a retired internist."

4. The author criticizes her physician for being "too busy to follow up while I was still in the hospital for the postoperative afternoon and night, and when I went home." Once again, although the wife of the internist visited, the author assumes that the physician knew of her stay in the hospital. It may not have been possible for him to see the patient in the brief period that she was in the hospital, for whatever reason. In the author's case, a hospital visit would been a social call because there was really nothing the internist could have done. Certainly his services were not necessary for the pacemaker placement.

5. Finally, the author changed physicians but did not call her physician to explain why. Her reasoning was, "he could Figure it out for himself." If she had had the courtesy to call her physician, I am sure he would have addressed her concerns.

This essay was fraught with unrealistic and unreasonable demands by the patient, Ms. Bingham. That a journal such as Annals chose to print it remains disturbing to me.