Anxiety and Stress Forum - Anxiety depression malpractice

Alright i'll try to expain everything so ya'll understand. =)

My husband has been suffering with Anxiety/Depression for years now. The problem was never taken care of in the past because his work schedule was making it nearly impossible to be able to get a doctor that was open on Sunday mornings. He works 10 - 12 hour days monday though Saturday. Well finally he found a doctor that takes patients on Sundays, and late evening during the week. We thought this would be perfect.

On his first visit, I had to leave work early to come home to take care of our son. When he arrived at the office the receptionist informed him that his doctor had taken his lunch break and to come back in a couple hours. I had to take the rest of the day out of work so he could go back. There was no way I was going to have him wait another month to get an apointment. This is not the first time this has happened either. I was very upset about his apointment being changed. I wouldn't have cared if the receptionist had done her job right and had called to let him know not to come in til a later time. Instead I had missed 5 hours of work. Not once, not twice, but three times.

The doctor had given him a prescription of Venlafaxine. Before leaving his doctor informed him to not stop taking the medication and if there were any side effects or any issues to call him immediately. After a couple days of taking this medication my husband started to have side effects. He called his doctor on Thursday, here it is now Wednesday and still nobody has called him back. He had called between 1 to 2 times a day for the last week, and has left numerous messages. We have even threatened to call a lawyer (which we were not going too.) He has stopped taking the medication but is still having side effects since it is not out of his system yet. I'm just so angry that the nurses/receptionist have failed to tell his doctor what is going on. I feel that there is absultly no communation with the staff in that office. There all very rude, and seem very uneducated.

When you get a prescription the information that is added with it always states If you are having these side effects contact your doctor immediately! All in caps.. But what good is it if you can't get a hold of your doctor!

My question is Is there anything that can be done with the way his situation has been? Is this considered malpractice? Im not looking to sue anyone I just feel that something should be done with the staff at this place. I have never had to deal with this before and it really upsets me. Expecially seeing my husband suffer.

Thank you VERY much for any advice/comments!!

I am very sorry that this is so long!