About Doctors

Like many top professions, medicine attracts people who have certain personality traits. In medicine, these include attention to detail that boarders on compulsion, self-confidence that boarders on arrogance and willingness to make hard decisions that boarders on being judgmental. It takes all of these to be able to pick up a sharp knife, cut deeply into a living human being and trust that everything will be all right.

     As a retired, neighborhood doctor, I hear lots of doctor stories. I heard about an elderly lady who had a pacemaker placed in her chest and afterwards began to suffer strange fevers and side effects. Even though the family pleaded with the doctor that all the trouble seemed to start with the placement of the pacemaker, the doctor refused to believe anything was wrong with the device and refused to investigate. Only when the woman was near death was it learned that the pacemaker was contaminated with bacteria and the problems were due to an infection spreading through her bloodstream. I heard about the healthy man who had a routine colonoscopy and the doctor, even though he suspected that he punctured the bowel wall when he removed a polyp, said nothing. As the patient got more ill over the next few days, the doctor gave the family a jumble of mixed diagnosis and explanations as to what was happening. When they asked if the surgery could have caused a problem, the doctor got defensive. At autopsy, it was clear that the hole in the bowel wall had caused a fatal infection.

     Patients come into the medical care system trusting, frightened and needy. But they should never lose their confidence in their ability to judge what is happening in an interaction with a doctor or any other medical caregiver. If you feel you are being judged, you are. If you feel you haven’t been listened to, you haven’t been. If you feel that there is something wrong and the medical person is ignoring it, that’s what is happening. There is nothing about medicine that cannot be easily explained in non-medical terms. If you find yourself confused, insecure or disrespected, it is not your fault, it is the fault of the person you are dealing with.

     Medical education is trying hard to change young doctors’ attitudes towards patients, but the personality type that gets into medicine won’t change. Patients rightfully approach an interaction with a physician with respect for his/her intelligence, training and dedication, but they also need to keep in mind that the doctor is a human being and can make mistakes.  Always ask questions and only accept clear, understandable answers.