An excerpt from The Take-Charge Patient: How You Can Get The Best Medical Care (Lemon Grove Press) which will be released May 15, 2012.
Here are a few suggestions that will help you make the most of your relationship with your doctor. They are for your benefit as a patient, because the more you know, the more empowered you will feel.
Remember That Doctors Are Human Beings
Almost every health care professional emphasized …
About four months ago I found myself an unlikely participant in an unlikely situation, after having endured the unlikeliest of journeys. At the end of October myself and three others from Solaris (Andy Milligan, Luke Oyler, and Robbie Surratt) boarded a plane in Dallas and made our way towards Nepal. We were traveling halfway around the world in order to help a non-profit organization called MountainChild bring medical care to …
If your computer has ever slowed way down you may have been advised to “defrag,” which puts all parts of a file together in the same place on the drive, enabling it to run faster and more efficiently. In much the same way, your health care needs to be defragged. For most people, health care is extremely fragmented, creating errors, delaying diagnoses and treatment and increasing costs.
Even for the very …
An excerpt from The Take-Charge Patient: How You Can Get The Best Medical Care (Lemon Grove Press) which will be released May 15, 2012.
Your Relationship with Your Doctor
“A good relationship with your physician can lead to better medical care.”
-Zouhdi A. Hajjaj, MD, internal Medicine, Yarmouthport, MA
Your relationship with your doctor is an important one that can last for many years. It is a partnership. You and your doctor collaborate to maintain your …
“Wait, you said you’re a medical student?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I will be seeing a real doctor though, right?”
“Yes, of course!” I smiled, then attempted to defuse his frustration with a quip about getting two opinions for the price of one.
He didn’t laugh, understandably. He was only 25, built like a linebacker, draped in a backwards hospital gown that exposed his unfamiliarity with this environment, among other things. Yet he was here …
I had a patient once. Her name was Alice (not her real name). Alice was in her mid-thirties, diabetic, had chronic pain, high blood pressure and was an alcoholic. She lived on Kuper Island which was just a short ferry ride from the small pharmacy I managed in Chemainus, British Columbia. Alice would come in every month or so to see me for her medication, go over her blood sugar results, take her blood pressure. …
Most people wish that they knew what to say and do, and how to be when approaching dying, death and grief.
Because we’re uncomfortable and unprepared for end-of-life encounters, we either stay away, say and do things that don’t help; or act in ways that are neither becoming nor helpful to the people about whom we care.
What if you did know what to say, what to do and how to be …
Ok, you caught me. I am mortal. After four score or so years, my body will fail and I will live no longer. Dust to dust. Not thrilled, but I expect most of you are the same. I have but two final requests. Let me end my life in peace, surrounded by family. Second, please, do not let me “pass”… I really want to die.
Like you, I have struggled through …
I recently arrived home from a youth service trip to St. Louis. On the 11-hour ride home in a 22-year-old, 15-passenger van with no A/C and no tape deck, and the cigarette lighter powering a small portable fan in the third row of the van, we listened to more radio than I have listened to since I was a sophomore in high school.
Several members in the van love country music, …
Last year, I was referred to two different dermatologists because I have two skin conditions and each dermatologist is an expert on one of them. (I know how fortunate I am to have access to this level of medical care.) Something amusing happened at each visit.
After examining me and deciding on a course of treatment, the first dermatologist said, “When you get home, don’t look up this condition on the …
An excerpt from Goal Play!: Leadership Lessons from the Soccer Field.
I recently had lunch with one of my soccer alumnae, now aged 28. Tovah said to me, “Do you remember that play I made in the tournament we went to in Connecticut? I mean when I mistakenly headed the ball into our own goal and caused us to lose the game.”
“Well, I was devastated and was sitting on the …
It’s always amazing to me how quick folks can be to offer advice. Unwanted advice. Medical advice. Near strangers jump at the chance to give input without a second thought. Isn’t everyone quick to judge a doctor they’ve never met, particularly when the doctor is treating something they’ve never even heard of? What does this say about me? When someone does this to me, they are basically telling me that …
“What’s considered a sexual risk for an old person? Not wearing a diaper?”
“How about old people just stop having sex?”
These comments from an Internet social media “discussion” group on older adult AIDS prevention reflect blatant eldercare bias. They are just more of many examples of negative stereotypes about them that are embedded in our society. Not only do they affect older adults who are currently victimized by them, they also …
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If you go to Las Vegas, one of the many restaurants you will encounter is the Heart Attack Grill.
It is probably the most extreme and unhealthy place to eat in the United States and deliberately courts controversy with its use of extreme menu item names, unusual promotions, and unique themes. An example of the extreme food names include Flatliner Fries (French fries made with pure lard), Butterfat Shakes, and the …
As are many clergy, I am a pastor who is deeply involved in the medical lives of many of my parishioners. Because of what I have seen, particularly but not exclusively with end-of-life issues, I found myself increasingly averse to engaging the medical system for my own health needs.
However, I could no longer ignore some troubling symptoms. With trepidation, I ventured in.
I have been referred by my primary care physician …
Primary care physicians are the point of first contact that people like you and I have with a hospital or health systems. We are 13 times more likely to visit a primary care physician in any given year than we are to need a hospital stay.
Primary care physicians are very important. Yes they are they the first line of care for many people. The primary care physician’s office …
Several months ago while visiting my ninety-eight-year-old grandmother, I knelt down next to her chair and looked her in the eyes.
“Grandma,” I said with mock seriousness, “I think you’re finally getting old.”
She laughed. “Well, yes, I think I finally am!”
In some ways, I wasn’t kidding. My grandmother has always been active and fit, gleefully turning a somersault for her five-year-old great-grandson when she was seventy-five. Taking care of “the old …
To have cancer is to change forever. It is a devastating declaration. Each of us copes with the diagnosis differently. How people adjust and move on with their lives are lessons in humanity.
I take care of a patient who explained to me how he deals with incurable cancer. Stan is active and able to enjoy grandchildren, friends and hobbies. He describes himself as happy, despite his terminal diagnosis. The key …
Recently, my mother died.
She was giving, kind, funny and would do anything in her power to help those who needed her. As a single parent divorced from a drug addict, she was all that I ever truly had in the realm of parenting and, as a result, she was everything to me. And she touched and was loved by so, so many people. She also had asthma and, most years, …
A while back, my brother-in-law was experiencing low back pain and my sister told me that the doctor had diagnosed it as a “herniated disc.” The conversation eventually evolved into a discussion about the difference between a “herniated” disc and a “ruptured” disc. My position was that ruptured was worse; my sister’s that they were the same thing. Since inquiring minds want to know these things, I decided to look …
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