When doctors or their family members receive medical care, should you reveal that you’re a physician?

I normally don’t, although sometimes it can’t be helped within the smallish city I live in.

A piece in Salon talks about a case where care was unacceptable until the patient’s son revealed his medical background:

The fact that I was a doctor helped my mother in other ways during the difficult days of her hospitalization. Her surgeon showed me her CT scan to back up his judgment about the need for surgery (which required a little explanation to the radiologist, given most doctors don’t show up to see scans in a T-shirt, shorts and sandals). I saw a sea change in her internist, who suddenly felt comfortable communicating with me in our common clinical language. He knew, I suppose, that I would be able to save him time and translate his assessment into plainer English for my parents.

It’s an unfortunate reality that physicians and their families often receive better communication within the medical system.

Maybe it’s there’s an increased level of comfort talking between colleagues, not having to explain medical jargon.

Or perhaps the providing physician tends to opens up knowing that there is mutual understanding of the difficulties navigating the medical system.

Whatever the reason, and I certainly don’t think it’s a conscious effort for doctors to preferentially provide better care to their medical brethren.