Re: feeling good and wondering why-Ham.Sue and others
From: smithy@maine.rr.com
Mon Jul 19 09:52:26 1999
At Mon, 19 Jul 1999, HAM.SUE wrote:
>
>Hi there everybody,
>With all the posts about Dr patient communication I felt I wanted to say a
>few things about how I feel when the boot is on the other foot. I am a
>Veterinary Surgeon and always used to find I didn't deal very well with
>people who were actively searching for cures themselves for conditions that
>I was treating. I now realise that was largely a reaction on my part to the
>frustration of treating conditions where either there was no known Curative
>treatments or what was supposed to be working wasn't.
>I found that it triggered my own insecurity and instead of being able to be
>with the client and their concern, I went straight to the feeling of "I'm
>not good enough" which is a pretty universal feeling for all humans! and I
>automatically became defensive
>I can now appreciate that someone seeking answers independently is doing
>just that and it doesn't have to mean that they don't think I'm doing a good
>enough job even though I'm doing the best I can.
>The other thing with Internet stuff etc is that its often theoretical and
>unproven still and we are very scared often of doing things which then later
>turn out to have undesirable outcomes because they haven't been fully
>researched and we can get blamed.
> I would say its pretty hard to appreciate the sort of frustration
>adhesions disorders bring without having had a chronic illness / disability
>of some sort. I also like many of you find myself saying I'm fine when I'm
>not !!
>Mary I think those questions you posed are really great perhaps we could
>organise a questionnaire or something to get an concrete analysis of what
>symptoms , personality traits etc we do have in common and what sort of
>things work for what percentages of us?? I certainly know how valuable it is
>to read posts from others, but I'm finding it hard to keep track in any
>other way than anecdotal reports.
>By the way I ended up buying a TENS unit which seems to help a bit with
>bloating - for me anyway.
>Best wishes all, Sue.
> PS Ive just gone back to full time work after 4 years of only being able to
>do relieving work. so fingers crossed.
Hi!
It's great having a professional on board! I have always thought about
this and realized that it is true. I work in a hospital setting and get
an idea of the other side of the story. I believe communication/people
skills are as important as medical knowledge when practicing medicine,
but doctors are only human so they are going to have human reactions to
situations. I would hope they would be on the lookout for this reaction
in themselves and understand that the patient is usually extremely
motivated to get well. I think if the doctor relied on this motivation
along with his /her (the doctor's) medical expertise, what a team they
would make. This is not often the case. Maybe in that situation the
patient should look for another doctor. I'm sure there are also plenty
of patients that want the doctor to do all the thinking.
Right now I am dealing with a primary care physician who makes referrals
and then doesn't believe what the specialist says even when it is their
specialty they are talking about! Two Gi related docs have stated that
my problem is not with my bowels and my pcp still maintains it is.
(despite my observance that increased fiber made my problem 100% worse)
This really confuses the patient. He has just referred me to a pain
clinic and I was disappointed to learn that they would not be treating
me. Instead, they make their recommendations to my pcp who then manages
the treatment. If he does not follow their recommendations then I think
I will definitely have to look for another pcp.
I agree with what you said about it being hard to fully understand the
distress a disorder like adhesions causes without having suffered a
similar situation. A doctor recently described to me the frustrations
of getting the "medical runaround" in a situaton he was personally
involved with. I think this was a very helpful thing for him to
experience as a doctor. It scares me though because I have to wonder if
the successful outcome was the result of being taken more seriously
because he was a doctor. I am sure he was able to communicate his
problem better than many of us can, yet it was still frustrating to him.
Chris