Or you’re at the next stage. You’ve been given a diagnosis that requires specialist treatment. Now you need to know what to do.
In either case, your first responsibility is to yourself. You have to find peace of mind – and that comes from a successful patient/doctor collaboration.
The Patient/Doctor Balance
It’s not by accident that the patient – you – come first in this equation. After all, it’s your body and your health that we’re talking about. Not someone else. Not the people who write – from dispassionately to hysterically – on the internet. Not the doctor, nor the statistics with which doctors work to determine what is “normal.”
This is all about you and finding a way through a physical and emotional minefield with calm and grace.
The important thing to remember is that not only can this be achieved, but it isn’t even that difficult. It’s all about how you approach the situation and all the players involved – from your medical team to your family. You’re managing this situation – contrary to what you might think. There is, in fact, more in your control than you may think – or are led to believe.
So, start as you mean to go on, have a vision for what you want this experience that seems so completely out of your control to look and feel like and then take the conscious steps to get there.
Which starts with your doctor.
Doctors, like everyone else, are human. They have opinions, personalities and ways of working that sometimes mesh with yours and sometimes don’t. What you want – what you’re looking for – is someone with whom you can collaborate. Who treats you like an equal. Who doesn’t have the attitude that their way is the right way. In fact, the only way…and that if you don’t get with their program you’re in the wrong.
Doctors are responsible for providing you with the best, most up-to-date, evidence-based effective options for the ways that your condition might be treated – from a cold to cancer. Then, they’re responsible for giving you their best professional opinion about which treatment option to choose and why.
Because of their background and experience, they have preferences for the ways that any condition might be treated. From the basic to the complex, they will make recommendations based on what they know and have found successful in the past. The way they want to proceed.
That’s good. That’s what you want. But it doesn’t mean that one doctor’s answer is also yours.
You know you better than anyone else. You know what makes you comfortable and what doesn’t. You know the people with whom you feel you can work and communicate well and those with whom you can’t. You know who is listening and who is just going through the motions.
What the medical experience does is bring all of that to the forefront in a circumstance when you’re not at your best and are looking for someone else to give you the “right” answer. What you have to remember is that getting to that answer means giving and commanding the same respect for yourself as for your doctor.
It is empowering yourself by making yourself an active part of the decision-making process. Not simply allowing someone else to decide for you. Because while your healthcare is your doctor’s hands, your health is in your own.
Managing Your Healthcare Experience
When you’re in a shop and are deciding about something you want to buy, you look at labels. You read ingredients. You have certain brands that you trust and will go to – even for products which are new.
If you own a business, you work with suppliers. You choose those suppliers by the quality of the product and service you’re provided. You work with people you can trust to do what you need them to do when you need them to do it.
It’s no different with your healthcare. When it’s your health you’re dealing with and you’re looking at doctors, it’s all about trust.
The reason that referrals work – whether from your GP to a specialist or from your friends to a practitioner they consulted – is because there is a trust-based system already in place. Your GP knows who provides specialist treatment in whatever area it is that you need. He or she should give you choices of practitioners to consult – not just one.
And while it can’t be expected that every GP knows every specialist – including specialists you research and identify yourself – your GP should have professional knowledge, through professional organizations, his or her own patients or patients of other doctors in the practice that the specialists to whom you are being referred are practitioners you can trust.
Or, if you are experiencing something that someone you know and trust has gone through – or knows someone who has had the same medical specialty needs – you want to find out. You want to know with whom they worked and how the experience played out.
It always comes back to the same thing: You want to know who you can trust.
Then it’s on you. From that point forward it is, in form, a calm and thoughtful conversation with the doctor. In fact, it is an interviewing process. You’re choosing your practitioner – that person who is going to give you all the medical support you need to give you the best odds of a good outcome and, in the process, give you the peace of mind that you need that you are in good hands.
And that means multiple opinions from multiple sources.
In a separate article, I’ll be talking about how you do your own research, but for now, let’s stick with the doctors.
There’s a fascinating piece on the BBC Health website about second opinions. Carefully written, it doesn’t say don’t get second opinions, but, much like many in-office medical experiences, it is also rather clear that that isn’t quite the thing to do.
After all you’re supposed to believe what your doctor says. You’re supposed to trust your doctor. And if you do, that should mean that you don’t need to get information elsewhere. Right?
Even worse, when played out in person in a doctor’s office, there is sometimes an almost unbearable, near-guilt component to which you’re exposed. The questions, “You don’t trust me? How could you not trust me?” are the elephant in the room. You’ve said you want a second opinion and, suddenly, you’re the villain of the piece.
No you’re not. You’re gathering information. You’re doing your research. You’re taking care of yourself and managing the process in a way that gives you the greatest peace of mind.
You’ll have to check with your insurer to make sure that you’ve got coverage for multiple opinions. Some provide it, others don’t. You may decide that you want to pay for other opinions out of your own pocket. But whether from your pocket or paid for by insurance, it is the same thing: an investment in you.
And it’s just as likely that you’ll go back to the first or other doctor after having gathered the other opinions. You’re not trying to prove anyone wrong. You’re not trying to prove anything at all. You’re just taking care of yourself – and if your doctor doesn’t understand that, then that’s a commentary on the doctor, not you.
The thing to remember is that you and your doctor are equals in this process. You go to your doctor for the expertise he or she can provide. But you are not a supplicant. You are an equal member of this interaction. In order for the doctor to succeed, you have to be just as present and involved as your doctor, both in following their treatment plan and in having the right attitude about your health and healthcare process.
But, in order to do that, you need to have absolute trust in the doctor with whom you’re collaborating. You need to know that they have your back and, in so doing, you have theirs, too.
Your doctor wants to win. Doctors are in a constant battle with the diseases and conditions with which they are presented. They are fighting the good fight – and they’re fighting it on your behalf.
Most important of all, you are on the same side. You want to be so comfortable with your doctor and treatment plan that, by the time treatment begins, all you are doing is working positively together with your doctor and the whole of your medical team. That way, you have everything you need to win the battle. To create success.
The outcome is never guaranteed and both of you know that. But if you’re working together as equals, actively cooperating, extending the trust that each of you deserves and commanding the mutual respect that comes with a positive collaboration, you’ll win. Your healthcare experience will be all the better for it and your attitude throughout will help you, your doctor and your loved ones.
Copyright © 2009 by
Leslie L. KossoffIf you would like to contact Leslie Kossoff please complete our simple online form. 
