One of "those" doctors

Yesterday I read a blog post a friend had tweeted out about a Doctor in the US that has a radio show & what transpired.(See link to Red Hairings blog here)

For me he sums up one of “those” Doctors, that think so highly of themselves & because they are convinced they are an expert, that they don’t need to listen to what the patient is telling them & instead come up with their own random conclusions. I think many with chronic illnesses have met this type of doctor before & I am one of them.

I have had Doctors not pay an ounce of attention to what I have said because they have already made their own assumptions. I’ve been ill in hospital & on several occasions had one of these bozos show up, intent on not listening to a word I would say which particularly on one occasion led to what the hospital calls an “incident” which is code for messing up so badly it could have risked my life. 

Thankfully Mr Techie Carer insisted on a second opinion when I just wanted to go home.

And thats the thing. If you’re in hospital especially in A&E you’re likely going to feel awful & be in pain, couple this with a doctor unwilling to listen & its easy to feel upset & despair. And if you did get upset or cry it seems to validate what they were saying to their mind. I have no doubt that people with mental health issues face even further problems with the “its all in your head” stigma.

But when Mr Techie Carer came into the picture & would meet these type of doctors with me, they still wouldn’t listen but then he would back up what I was saying or repeat it & suddenly what we were saying was accepted. 

I can’t help but think is the magic trick that you need a penis or two people??

This of course doesn’t work every time but usually in these cases I have learnt to play the wait music in my head & tune them out whilst they redirect all their doctrine at him (poor guy) & then we ask for a second opinion from the other hospital because unfortunately when they make up their mind, there’s nothing more to say. 

I’m extremely glad of the support of my partner but people alone & understandably overwhelmed shouldn’t have to go through this. 

However, saying all of this, there are some fantastic doctors like my GP who always has time for you, listens & works with you. These doctors are the ones that trundle away in the background, want to get to the bottom of things, keep everything going & don’t call themselves experts. 

And you may be an “expert” but we all have something we can learn.