F ³: Where’s the Phone?

 

Today’s post is about mental images and cognitive flexibility. First, an anecdote for context:

As a newlywed, I adored my food processor. Back then I cooked everything from scratch and it was one of the wedding presents that got frequent use. So, I tried to talk my mother into getting one. She was still chopping everything in a wooden chopping bowl. Her resistance amazed me.

"How do you make sure that the plastic pusher-thing doesn't get sliced off by the blades?" She asked, doubtfully.

"It doesn't! Trust me! And besides, do you think they could successfully market something that got sliced up as soon as you used it?"  I wasn't very patient with her line of thinking.

She got a food processor. But she never really used it. It sat on the kitchen counter looking sparkly and new. And she continued to use her wooden chopping bowl.

I won the battle, but I lost the war. - - Challenging Our Assumptions, Village Green/Town², March 21, 2013

One of the things about aging that I have dreaded is the loss of cognitive flexibility. Now, I’m not using that term in its most accurate sense . What I mean is the difficulty in seeing things in new ways while the world is changing around you. Probably a lot of that has to do with having such firm mental images of “how things ought to work” that there is no more room for creating new ones. 

No, I’m not a neuroscientist. This is purely armchair observation and theorizing. And I should add that age isn’t always a predictor of this. Some older folks retain that flexibility and I’ve seen others get mentally stuck in high school or college. 

This week I had an experience which felt like my Food Processor Moment. I was trying to reach my primary care provider. But I did not know what magic words to say to get to the telephone of right person at the right desk. 

Until very recently my doctor was in a small practice of two doctors. If I called I knew I would be speaking to one of the two people behind the desk who always greeted me when I came into the office. I knew the protocol for asking questions, making appointments, requesting a call back from the doctor, and so on.

My new primary care provider is a part of an enormous, multi-location system. The medical care from both providers: excellent. The protocol for reaching someone by telephone couldn’t be more different.

I feel cast adrift. My brain tells me I should be speaking to “Dr. So and So’s office.” 

That doesn’t exist. 

There’s one main number and whoever answers has a computer and I guess they have access to my medical files. It occurred to me this week that they may not even be located in the building where I see my doctor. As long as they can connect easily to the people and information necessary, why would their work location be important?

It is breaking my brain.

I have suddenly become my mother, who for years made the employees at the post office smile when she came in to buy “penny post cards.”

I want to know who the person is that I’m calling, and know that they have a working relationship with my doctor, and that they have at least a vague memory of seeing me in the office. Instead I feel as though I am interacting with the same kind of anonymous call center that turns all of us into tiny cogs in a giant machine. I’m sure it’s all about efficiency. Isn’t it always?

To be clear: everyone I’ve dealt with on the phone has been helpful. But I’m beginning to realize that they understand how it all works and I…I just don’t. I often feel like I’m not even asking the right questions to get the information I’m looking for.

I no longer “speak the language.”

I knew that transitioning to a new primary care provider after many years might be challenging. I had no idea how much I’d miss the person who picked up the phone when I called.

Village Green/Town² Comments