Do You Trust Your Doctor?
Jul 30 2008 | Comments 7
There’s an interesting post on the New York Times‘ Well blog about the newly contentious relationship between doctors and patients. The video content is perhaps most revealing, as each person on the street answers the question, “Do you trust doctors?” The people were clearly talking about general practitioners or internists, for the most part, but I wonder what they would have said if they were asked about psychiatrists. The confidence level would be just as low, I think, if not lower.
Doctor and Patient, Now at Odds
liz | 9:37 AM | Uncategorized
Really? I would think (and hope!) the patient’s confidence would be higher in his or her psychiatrist.But maybe that’s just my experience.
I tend to think there are many doctors who could treat me for a broken toe or infection, but I better really trust the one who handles my meds and therapy and who helps keep me from jumping in front of a bus—if not, find a different one. You’re opening up a whole lot more to your psych than any other specialty, I’d think, and that would require more trust.
I have a funny story about a 3rd year med student that was with my doctor yesterday at my appointment.The student looked like he was about 12. While he was taking my history, I got really tickled. He had on SAS black lace-ups shoes (I understand that–when I was a nurse that’s what I wore). The funny part was the too big white socks. The gray heel part was hanging over the back of the shoe. Then when he left the room to get the doctor, I looked over at the computer and he had been looking my symptoms up on wikipedia. Not a special medical wiki, nope, just regular ‘ol anybody can edit wikipedia. Cracked me up.
Sometimes I feel that my doc is not aggressive enough with various tests to check for underlying side effects. Maybe he is being vigilant enough. Maybe I am just impatient. Kinda goes with the illness. So it’s hard to tell.
My p-doc almost killed me back in April when she adjusted my med cocktail a month earlier. . In fact, techinically she did, I flatlined for 2 minutes. My body still isn’t right.
I will never trust another doc again- at least not with a MD at the end of their name.
Definitely have low trust in my family practice guy. He spends 5 minutes with you and a headache is either just that, or a brain tumor. One extreme or the other (OMG, maybe he is bipolar too!). I do a better job of diagnosing myself than he does.
As for the p-doc, he asks me how I’m doing and writes me a new script. That is about it. If I ever really need anything he would not be the one to go to. I used to call p-docs the “drug ‘em and admit ‘em” bunch and I think that is largely true from my experience.
If you have a broken arm, or appendicitis, the medical profession is all set to go on those things. Get into the murky areas and you had better trust yourself. There is more they don’t know than they do know.
A year ago I would have said that I trusted my psych, but the past 6 months have been an array of trying new drugs that are making me worse, or at least not making things better. He remembers things from previous visits, which is better than any other psych I’ve ever had, but I’m feeling more uncomfortable as he keeps adding drugs that seem to make me sicker.
I had the good luck to acquire an outstanding P-MD and an understanding p-therapist, whom I still see regularly. However I have also encountered hacks, charletans, and the clueless, and employed common judgement to escape them. Just because I got crazy does not mean I got stupid.
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