I went to see a new doctor recently for a routine checkup and found it a
singularly disagreeable experience, so much so that I informed the doctor
shortly after getting home that I didn't want to be a patient in the future
and requested my medical records. More on them later.

Among the unusual features of the visit:
(1) Every other doctor I've gone to has had me fill out a form asking a lot
   of questions about medical history, including diseases I might have had,
   allergies, etc. This doctor only had me fill out a form indicating the
   insurance I might have and to sign a statement that I had read some
   document about my privacy rights (which they didn't include and which
   they took a while to find when I insisted on reading it).
(2) During the actual visit, the doctor asked me whether I'm in any high
   risk groups, which I'm not, but was extremely persistent in this line
   of questioning, as though determined to get different answers from the
   ones I was giving. The net result was that most of the time of the visit
   was spent talking about my sex life. The doctor also wanted to know
   whether I had ever been sexually or emotionally abused. The doctor did
   also ask me about family medical history, including the health of my
   parents and various relatives, and also about the kind of nutrition I get,
   which was ok, but I was very troubled by the intrusive nature of the
   inquiries into my sex life. In spite of the complete absence of any high
   risk behavior on my part, the doctor also seemed to be very interested in
   trying to get me to get an HIV exam at some facility that offers them for
   free, the reason being that "They are trying to get as many people tested
   as possible". I don't who "they" are, but it seemed to me that I was the
   doctor's client, not "them".
(3) In another posting I asked about someone who went to a doctor and was
   encouraged by the doctor to have affairs outside of a serious relationship.
   Actually, the person that happened to was me, and it was this doctor.
   Leaving aside the inappropriateness of such intrusion into my personal
   life, and the violence it does to a deeply trusting relationship, it
   also encourages me to expose myself to risks of the type that it was
   the ostensible purpose of the intrusive questioning of (2) to ferret out.
(4) I found this interview so troubling that I did a google search for the
   doctor's name. The few things I found included the following: (i) columns
   for an popular magazine; (ii) a website for an organization that
   specializes in trying to get gay Asian Pacific men to come out of the
   closet, where they thanked this doctor for providing a lot of helpful
   information (no one else was mentioned on the page); (iii) a web page
   for an organization of bariatric practitioners, where this doctor is
   listed as a member, but as neither signatory to the organization's
   official position nor as certified by the organization's board. The
   bariatric groups's website also has a page describing the recommended
   format for a first interview, and getting a psychological history is
   featured more prominently than I would expect from a regular doctor's
   interview, so that might explain some of the questions. On the other
   hand, the page http://icare4u.com/Cod_Conf.htm (these are eye doctors!)
   describes Evaluation and Management Codes and their revision over the
   years. I'm not sure how much emphasis a doctor is supposed to put on this,
   but they have a section on Past, Family and Social History (PFSH), in which
   Social History refers to "A review of significant past and current
   activities that includes information about marital status and/or living
   arrangements, current employment, occupational history, use of drugs
   alcohol and tobacco, extent of education, sexual history". That sounds
   like what I got in (2). The page distinguishes between "Pertinent PFSH"
   and "Complete PFSH". So maybe what this doctor did was exactly what
   certain organizations (insurance companies? AMA? HCFA?) tell them to do,
   and that it was merely unprecedented in my experience. Based on the
   odd collection of information I got from the google search, I thought
   the most likely explanation might be the following: (a) The doctor is
   connected with certain gay rights organizations and has a bias towards
   sexual issues and sexual counseling, to the extent that they are emphasized
   even when they are not relevant; (b) the doctor is also oriented towards
   treatment of eating disorders (bariatrics deal with obesity, which is not
   necessarily caused by a disorder, but disorders are certainly a relevant
   part of the subject). Hence, anyone who walks into this doctor's office
   for the first time without any specific complaints gets sexual counseling
   and evaluation for eating disorders. But this is pure speculation.
(5) I went to the library and found a 2003-2004 medical directory that lists
   doctors and their credentials. This doctor is listed as having graduated
   from Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1998 and having done a residency
   in Internal Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. There is a
   footnote saying that no changes in biodata had been reported as of this
   edition, which suggests that the information might be obsolete. I don't
   know what kind of format Lenox Hill Hospital gives its internists to follow
   in medical interviews.
(6) When I received my medical records from this doctor, it contained some
   comments that I believe are incorrect. Since I wasn't provided a copy of
   my privacy rights to take with me, I'm not absolutely sure, but I think
   these include the right to have something changed if it is not correct.
   In a way, the point is moot, since there is no HMO or insurance company
   that will receive them, but I prefer to have accurate information in my
   files. The two items that I believe are incorrect are: (a) a note saying
   that I have flat affect (written in two places); (b) a note saying that
   I have no libido. These are the only comments that seem to be psychological
   in content. Regarding (b), I'm not sure how this term is used clinically.
   If it is interpreted as referring specifically to sex drive, then the only
   information the doctor has is from asking me whether I have any sex drive
   and my answering "yes". In that case, the doctor wrote exactly the opposite
   of the information. On the other hand, according to "The Encyclopedia of
   Human Behavior: Psychology, Psychiatry, and Mental Health", by Robert
   M. Goldenson (Doubleday, 1970), the term has wider meanings in Freud
   in and Jung. For Freud, it refers not only to sexual pleasure but also
   to "satisfactions associated with intellectual endeavor and esthetic
   expression". This doctor made no effort to find out what I do for fun
   and what my intellectual endeavors and aesthetic expressions are. Apart
   from having a healthy sex drive, I'm also deeply involved in intellectual
   and creative activities. One can get some idea of the latter by looking
   at my sporadic journal LABYRINTHS at
   http://www.swiss.csail.mit.edu:~adler/LABYRINTHS/labyrintro.html
   and at other stuff on my site. So, I think it is incorrect to say I
   have no libido. As for flat affect, that is somewhat subjective. No one
   I know thinks I have flat affect. There is (or was) a shrink named Murray
   Alpert one aspect of whose research involved trying to come up with
   operational definitions for the vague, subjective definitions of
   schizeophrenia in use at the time. For example, for "flat affect",
   he would make a tape recording of the patient's voice and measure the
   voltage levels as he played the tape recording and computed the standard
   deviation of the voltage. He then defined "flat affect" in terms of the
   the number of standard deviations. Similarly, he measured "finger tremble"
   by using a device similar to a seismograph. The reason I know this is that
   I met Murray Alpert in the late 1970's under the following circumstances:
   I had gone to a wedding and left the same day. I was wearing
   a pair of jeans cut off above the knee, a white suit jacket with a
   carnation and a blue tee shirt on which was written the equations of
   Felix Klein's plane quartic curve with 168 automorphisms. Also, I was
   somewhat inebriated from the champagne I'd consumed at the wedding.
   I also had my books and papers with me so I could take advantage of
   whatever time I could find to get some work done on my research activities.
   I was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton at the time, and
   research was a very intense activity; it still is. I sat down in my seat,
   which was in the middle of three seats abreast, and started working on
   mathematics. Then two people sat down who had just been to a conference
   of shrinks but who were oddly enough talking about things like receptor
   sites, if I remember correctly. Since they were talking to each other
   across me, I asked them if one of them wanted to change seats with me
   so they could talk to each other. Since they were perfectly normal
   shrinks, they said no, thanks, and continued to talk across me. So,
   I tuned that out and just focused on my work. Eventually, one of them
   started to talk to me who turned out to be Murray Alpert. By the time
   we landed in New York, he had offered me the opportunity to work in his
   laboratory. So, I made an appointment after I got back to Princeton and
   went to see him at his laboratory, donated by a grateful patient, in
   Belleview. He described this aspect of his work and I also got to try out
   his finger tremble seismograph. He explained that the problem he was
   interested in was a diffusion model of tardive dyskinesia. He loaned me
   a book on the big nerve in the octopus and said he's try to get some
   funding for my activities (this left some doubt about whether he was
   actually going to pay me). He added, "If we get somewhere with this,
   we can try it out on some of the people in the state mental hospital."
   I went home and asked myself: "Who am I? I am someone he met in cut off
   jeans, white suit jacket with carnation, tee shirt with the equation of
   Klein's quartic curve, inebriated, on a short airplane ride to New York,
   and he's going to let me try stuff out on people in the state mental
   hospital?". I decided I didn't like the idea and mailed his book back
   to him. So, that's how I know about flat affect. I'd like to add that I'm
   a mathematician and I often have to lecture to people or, at any rate, to
   explain complicated things to them (math, or my sex life, or my family, to
   name a few). I have a certain way of talking to people under those
   conditions, which requires a lot of concentration on my part, and I
   don't know how that comes off on a stranger. I also try to be impersonal
   in clinical situations, since one's doctor is not one's personal friend
   in general. So, I can see that I might under certain conditions have a
   manner that doesn't come off as entirely typical. That's not the same as
   having flat affect.
(7) The medical record indicates that I was given samples of a certain
   medication. I was also given samples of another medication and that
   medication wasn't indicated on my medical record.

Regarding the lab tests, I'm happy to report that every thing was normal,
with the exception of a very slightly elevated cholesterol level that I think
I can correct with diet. Basically, everything was normal except the doctor.

Anyway, I'd like to know what is the right way to deal with this experience.