Reason 5967 why I hate this place

OK, OK, really, I know PhDCity is not so bad. Actually it has a lot of redeeming qualities and *most* of the time I enjoy living here. It's really true that wherever we go next, it will be hard to top the quality of life we've enjoyed for the last nearly 5 years... but there are some things that just drive me crazy and make me really hate this place.

Today's example: the city's overabundance of quack medical doctors. Seriously, there are soooo many doctors here in this city, and based on my experience, at least 50% of them have no clue. Zero. Once you find a "good doctor" you stick with hir. Unfortunately, my doctor is on vacation so I was left searching for a new one. I've been having trouble with my eyes since the beginning of the week, and last night, the eyelid on the painful one started to swell... this morning it was worse. So I decided I should go get it checked out. I searched the city's (actually extremely useful) online doctor database for someone in my part of the city that (claims to) speak English (also based on my experience, this is only true in less than 50% of the cases).

The doctor's office consisted of a desk and a chair. No medical-type equipment, no exam bed, nothing. The Dr's desk was covered in plants, a collection of plastic alien-looking toys and a computer. I told her about my eye (she didn't even look, and stayed at least 3 feet away from me at all times), she guessed at a few causes, but offered no solution... so I pressed her for some kind of something to help with the pain. She got out her book of medicines, looked up eye medications (this took at least 5 tries to find the right section), then recommended a very good eye gel that would at least lubricate and might help. She prints out a prescription for me, but with another patient's name (oops!). I asked her how to use it (how often, how much, etc), but she didn't know and tells me I should just read the instructions in the box. Tells me if that doesn't help, not to come back to her. She instead gives me a card for an eye doctor office and tells me I shouldn't have to wait more than a few weeks for an appointment. Helpful, huh?

So I left, went to the pharmacy and asked for this eye gel. Turns out they don't carry it and it's not even possible to order it anymore because the product has been discontinued. Nice. So I asked the Pharmacist for something else (she anyway thought the doctor was wrong and it wasn't what I needed to use - when I told her about my experience at the doctor's office she just nodded and agreed it was all too common here).

Why, why, why is this person allowed to practice medicine?! Shouldn't there be some sort of quality control to sort out the helpful people who actually know what they're doing from the quacks? What a waste of my morning. I'll spend the rest of the day trying not to scratch my eyeball out and hope this pharmacists suggestion might work...