A Solution to Not Getting Enough of Your Doctor’s Time
Doctors no longer hold the keys to all things medical. Support for you has arrived literally at your fingertips– the Internet. If you access reputable medical websites for information on your illnesses, you can learn so much more than what your doctor has time to tell you, and what you learn can be life saving….
Procedures and Operations: Studies Show A Lot of Inappropriate Use
If a doctor is pressuring you into a procedure, scaring you into a procedure or discouraging you from getting a second opinion, that is our cue to get out of there. A reputable doctor will always respect your intelligent decision to get another opinion, or to look at the literature or do some Internet searching…
How to Find Reputable Websites
Make sure to look for sites that end in .gov or .edu, it means that the government or an educational institution is standing behind that information. Usually when you see .org, this is provided by a non-profit organization. Websites that display ads and get revenue this way can be “specialists” at developing patient-friendly websites and…
Some Doctors are “Bad Apples”
If you find your doctor doing something “just a bit dishonest”, it’s probably just the tip of the iceberg. Go elsewhere. Just follow a general policy of keeping your eyes wide open, following your instincts, and not trusting in doctors as if they were gods or infallible.
Beware of the “it’s-all-in-your-head” diagnosis
In so many cases of misdiagnosed or undiagnosed illness, the patient is tested and examined by the doctor, and when nothing is found that the doctor can diagnose, he tells the patient “it’s all in your head”. Most of the time, it is NOT all in your head. When you hear this diagnosis from a…
Preventing Illness
Do your family a favor and get the preventative medicine tests that you need. For children, this usually means immunizations and checks for proper growth and recommended intervals. For women, it usually means pap smears and mammograms at certain ages and recommended intervals. For all adults, it means having your blood pressure and cholesterol checked…
Misdiagnosed
If your doctor has made a wrong diagnosis, then obviously your treatment is going to be incorrect, and you’re not going to get better. “There is now abundant evidence that delayed or missed diagnoses are widespread and that in more than 50% of such cases there are serious adverse outcomes.”1 The most common cause of…
Your Ability to Stop Medical Errors Before They Can Affect You
If you want to avoid being a victim of a medical error, you have to participate. “Some people appear to have these characteristics such that, in the presence of an error, there is a persistent sense that something is not right and it must be pursued until a satisfactory level of assurance is reached. These…