So Marvin and I have been not just under the weather but beat down, drug out and completely useless with the sickness. Who can really tell what sickness exactly but the rumor is a nasty sinus infection on my part and something much worse on Marvin's. And due to some of our recent happenings at the doctor's office a question popped into my antibiotic/steroid induced brain. Who is ultimately responsible for how effective a visit to the doctor's or in reality your whole relationship with your doctor?
The doctor's go to school, take an oath and I assume have some form of rules and/or procedures that they are to follow when they examine you. So you as a patient expect certain things to occur when you go in with a specific concern. Well what if it doesn't happen? For example: Let's say that your ear hurts. You go to the doctor and they basically just prescribe you some ear drops without even looking in your ear to see what the problem might be. Of course then a week later your ear still hurts and you have to go see another doctor to fix the problem.
Is it the doctor's fault for not looking in your ear? Or is the patient at fault for not saying "Hey doc don't you think you should look at my ear?"
We as patients trust our doctors so completely that maybe we are setting ourselves up for this kind of disappointment. So should we always need to be proactive at the doctor's office? Is that what the doctor expects? Why do they need us to provide them with what they should be doing or not doing?
The argument swings both ways.
However, as someone who moves every year and therefore has a new doctor every year who does not know my history nor me as a person, I find that being proactive (often taken as being pushy) at my doctor's visits is the best way to be sure I fit it all in. Most doctor's appointments are for 15 minutes. So it's often up to the patient to decide how that 15 minutes is spent. I for one make a list of things I want to discuss so I'm sure I don't miss anything. If I am going in for something specific (like the pray-for-death sickness I just had) I jot down my symptoms so it allows the doctor to cut to the exam part.
But on the other hand we (or our insurance) pays a boatload of money to doctors to provide us a service and we should demand an excellent level of service.
So maybe it's a little of both. We should expect our doctor's to give us everything they've got while we as the patient take an active role in ensuring we get the best bang for our buck.
But no matter what side you take on this argument....avoid the sickness because it sucks!
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2 comments:
Jack, I side with you and the doctor. You because doctors do not spend enough time with their patients. They rush in and rush out then charge your insurance big time. Now I can side with the doctor because once given your symptoms, you can generally diagnose someone without touching them. I actually find myself doing this when I evaluate patients. I generally know what the injury is after 2 minutes, but try to continue the eval.
Yeah I'm afraid that we all need to take a little responsibility. I am just as guilty as the next cat.
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