Doctor And Patient

[poliphilo]

I was at the hospital yesterday- not on my own account but to provide moral support for a friend who suffers from white coat anxiety

Comments

Dancing with Mr Universe.

[ron_broxted]

Different in the UK. Mercifully, I haven't had that many medical encounters. A few years ago an Indian medic just walked up and began grabbing at me. No "I am Dr X/Y/Z" just ""Where is the pain?" My last medic was European and couldn't really speak English. Ought I to crawl a few miles into Northern Ireland next time?

Re: Dancing with Mr Universe.

[poliphilo]

My friend was complaining that the notes about a procedure he'd had done in Essex hadn't been forwarded to East Sussex. "The regions don't communicate", he said. "we don't have an NHS any more...."

[wantedonvoyage]

I think you have to be receptive for hypnotism to work, so I guess it says you are not easily led astray!

[poliphilo]

I've always been resistant to authority....

[wantedonvoyage]

Never thought about that but it makes sense.... you're right, when I was a kid you did what the doctor said. Now there are adverts on TV (at least here) telling you to tell your doctor you want this or that drug. I'm not the one with the medical degree!

[poliphilo]

I don't particularly trust doctors. Too many of them have allowed themselves to be suborned by the drug companies. Also, as a general practitioner admitted to Ailz, your average family doctor has only a superficial understanding of most of the conditions they are going to be asked to treat.

[wantedonvoyage]

Well, then.

I do feel like my current GP is way too passive in terms of what he does during our visits. I feel fine, but I don't know what I don't know. Compounding it, we are "friends" in that I met him socially through the Town Gays, so if I leave his practice there may be Feelings (although in reality we have not socialized with any of them in years. He may not even notice.)

HCD's doctor is, by his account, humorless, but a lot more thorough and direct.

[poliphilo]

It's tricky when someone you have to deal with professionally is also a friend

[halfmoon_mollie]

My father was impressed by any kind of education (and he had two degrees himself) so the doctor was almost God. My hemophiliac brother did not agree, even when he was a teen and in the hospital for treatment. When one of HIS doc prescribed Coumadin (blood thinner) my brother refused to take it and checked himself out of the hospital.

[poliphilo]

One of Ailz's doctor's told her to"own" her condition and find out all she could about it- as he wasn't a specialist and hadn't the time to do the research....

[halfmoon_mollie]

😠

[mallorys_camera]

I'm in favor of increasing patient autonomy myself. It always seemed dubious to me that doctors function as both the agents & providers of service. (Supplier-induced demand and all of that.)

[halfmoon_mollie]

kind of self defense these days is my thought.

[poliphilo]

Yes, I agree.