A doctor’s worst nightmare
I love Fox’s wacky medical show House,
forget the fact that it is a fictional TV show which solves every medical mystery known to man in 60 minutes, skirting unquestionably moral boundaries that would have any real medical professional prosecuted for criminal acts.
I love the show because house represents the type of doctor I want mine to be. One who would do anything in their power, ethical obligations be damned to save my life.
Why cant real doctors be like house?, I sometimes ask when I find myself lost in the midst of another life saving episode.
The reality is always one clear a truth when I contemplate on it further, since the main reason why doctors are handcuffed above and beyond their ethical obligations is ironically the patient.
The patient is the doctors worst nightmare
Actually an empowered patient is the doctors worst nightmare.
I was reading an interesting article recently about how to safely digitize medicine written by a medical student he said
Once that knowledge leaves that physicians head, it empowers more an more people to help the patient. Most importantly, it helps the patient help themselves. The more places medical knowledge can be, the more powerful it can be, and the healthier we can be. Thomas Goetz, in his book The Decision Tree: “Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine” in he is the only person urging doctors to repeat themselves, so that the knowledge stays with the patient longer. Requests for medicine to “go digital” need to be heard not as nagging demands from petulant or arrogant technophiles, but pleas for doctors to maximize the rigors of their training.
Naturally, there are risks to disseminated information. For sure, the patient armed with a dossier of internet factoids presents more problems than solutions. But this is precisely why doctors must take an active role in developing ways to disseminate and manage information safely.
“Digitizing medicine” falls in the realm of the much broader push for patient empowerment, a crucial subject in chronic disease management like diabetes and a hot button topic in the coming year.
Doctors are fearful and dismissing this movement for good reason, one which lies in the infringement of their domain yet today’s patient is one who is educated and empowered about their disease.
The internet has made it easier to gather information and knowledge about ones diabetes, as stated above the real objective lies in the doctor helping the patient become empowered by helping facilitate a better understanding of the decimated information we must work together instead of fighting with traditional roles and titles.
I have been a diabetic for over 13 years now and while I might not have MD next to my name, does not mean I haven’t reached a level of understanding about living with diabetes that I can educate the doctor about a few things.
The video below represents a Utopian state that every diabetic and their physician relationship should be, fears on both sides have to be pushed to the side.
an empowered patient can be the doctor’s worst nightmare but effectively managing diabetes requires a collaborative effort with all parties working as equals toward a common goal, it is great to see the mayo clinic spear heading this type of initiative as well, hopefully many more will follow.
Are you an empowered patient? How well do you work hand in hand to with your doctor to facilitate a better treatment path for your diabetes? does your doctor allow you to provide said input or do they consider you a difficult patient when you do?
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WELCOME!!
I am an empowered patient, have been ever since I was
diagnosed at 11. I haven’t found a good doctor yet so I’ve always
been on my own. I’ve read all the medical text books so i’d have a
better understanding of the info in online medical journals. Then I
figured things out the hard way (trial and error). Obviously If i
need meds (which i currently do not) I’ll need a doc’s good help,
until then, I get my prescriptions and get the hell out of the
office lol. (my last doc said i was cocky just because i told him i
was aware of something-geez)
Hopefully a lot more doctors will embrace this movement because it only makes their jobs mush easier, explaining a course of treatment to someone who already understands what it entails layman or not can only be a good thing…
The egos need to be left at the door that’s what I say. U might have had 6 years of medical school but I have been going to diabetes U for 13 years now.
Exactly!
Excellent! Empowerment will continue to scare the hell out
of doctors until they realize that this is not going to change. I
do agree with some of them that say there is so much bad
information on the internet. One doctor told me to stay off the
internet for medical info and he is no longer one of my doctors.
One of my current doctors is leary of the internet, but after I
gave the office many of my sources of information, the attitude
changed and we talk about a few topics. I have my questions ready
(normally two to four) and printed out so that if there is not time
to cover them I hand them to the nurse. I do get an email with the
answers up to two days later or the following weekend. This works
for me. Also, they now have a list of websites that they recommend
which they have available to hand out and on the tables in the
waiting room. Many even come from my original list. The problem
still lies with most doctors because they cannot afford to pay
their help to find the good and reliable sites. Again – excellent
and I will be referencing this in an upcoming blog.
Its good to hear that your doctor is agreeable to letting you become more involved in your own care, many are still fighting the empowered patient, which logically makes no sense being that we have diabetes means we in the long run get an understanding of what the disease entails and an educated patient makes for a better patient in my opinion.
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