Did the doctor just laugh at me?

There's this super fancy hospital in downtown Heidelberg. If you get off the Strassenbahn (street level train) at Bismarck Platz (where the pedestrian shopping zone is) and turn around, you'd never know the building was a hospital. It looks more like some sort of government building. I never really thought twice about that building, regardless of the fact that my husband and I were always down in Heidelberg doing something or other.

When I received my referral to a specialist, it was bizarre. I first had to go see a regular orthopedist in downtown Mannheim. The doctor's office wasn't like any I'd ever seen before, of course, I was in Germany not America. But, on my high school exchange program, I did visit a local doctor's clinic with my exchange partner - but that's beside the point. Anyway, I always love new experiences in Europe like learning about social customs or local traditions, etc. This was not an experience I was prepared for.

So the doctor's office (like every other office or house in a city setting in Europe) was up behind a storefront building. It was hard to find at first because there was no sign so my husband was merely going off the street addresses. We're both skeptical because once you get behind the building, you have to go up these narrow steps and then it's like you're in some one's backyard garden or something. We enter the building, and head to the second floor like the paperwork we got from our insurance told us to do. Once we get inside the actual office, it's more like ... an office. Nobody's wearing scrubs or coats. There's no check-in desk. There is however, what looks to be a closet with sliding glass doors that are obscured by its bubbled glass. My husband shrugs at me, peeks around a corner and sees a bunch of chairs and heads to do what else? To sleep of course.

I stick my head through these glass doors because really, there is no one else around in this office besides the two women chattering away and clacking at their computer keyboards. I greet them in German; ask if I am in the right place. A young girl, maybe 3 years younger than I am, confirms that I am and I tell her who I am. Then some burly German guy barges in through the doors and starts babbling about an appointment - so I know this must be check-in. It's just bizarre is all. I mean, this room is tiny to say the least, and I stood there for about 10 minutes filling out paperwork in German and answering a bunch of questions in German.

When the girl has finished my paperwork, I go to wait for my "Termin", my new word for my appointment. I apparently used the wrong word when I was making conversation but I'm used to German nuances for the most part - you know, being corrected in the middle of a sentence or conversation as if what you were trying to say depended on it - even when you don't ask or want to be corrected. Yeah.

Anyway, we must have waited almost an hour which is rather unusual for Germans who are known for their impeccable punctuality and timeliness. We are escorted to an examination room, and it too, is a closet. Literally. I mean, the one wall was full of cabinets with labels on each door and drawer, and the on the other wall was an exam table that I was sitting on - my knees were almost touching the cabinets. My husband could barely fit in this room - he's a big guy, over 6 feet tall with really broad shoulders and he was uncomfortable.

So, when the doctor comes in, he starts speaking English automatically. It annoys me when Germans do this. Their practicing English is WAY more important than your learning German. But, I suppose I can understand that medical issues and expressions are not commonly learned so perhaps it wasn't rude, just politely convenient? Anyways, it doesn't matter because I can't say "dead wrist bone" in German anyhow. So I tell the doctor what I was told by Dr. R. He doesn't understand what I am talking about, so I hand over a CD with my X-ray images and tell him that they took them just a few weeks ago.

After disappearing for a few minutes, and reappearing, he hands me the disc back and says there's nothing he can do for me. I say "what?" He laughs at me. "I don't know why your doctor sent you here."

Am I missing something? Did the doctor just laugh at me?

He explains that at his clinic, unlike in American orthopedic clinics, they merely do diagnosis, and minor treatment like casts and splints. We're talking these people only deal with regular old broken bones and sprains. Great, right? He wants to know why I am there. I tell him this is where my doctor sent me to get treatment. So, he thinks a moment and says he has a friend who is a specialist in hands who works in Heidelberg. He gives me the name of the clinic and our appointment is over.

After a rather harrowing experience waiting to get clearance to go see this specialist in Heidelberg, we are happy and have an appointment for the fall of 2009. I spent hours on the hospital's website reading about the doctors, the clinics, the famous patients from all over the world. Steffi Graf was a patient there. Rich business men from Russia come all the way to Germany to be seen by these doctors. I haven't even been to this place, don't even realize I've seen this place, and I like it tremendously. Little did I know it's that big building downtown in an area I know well and love.