Earlier this month, Time magazine published a first-person account of a doctor having to deal with a challenging patient who came to him after having conducted some research via Google. The doctor’s description of his disdain for these kinds of patients, and this particular patient and her child, wasn’t very politically correct, which caught the eye of Tara Parker-Pope, who then wrote about it Thanksgiving week. Even with the holiday, the entry has drawn over 275 comments in a week’s time, suggesting Ms. Parker-Pope has really touched a nerve here. (Too bad Time doesn’t allow comments on its articles, as this discussion probably would’ve occurred on their website, instead of a newspaper’s — ah well.)
I couldn’t help but notice that this is a hot-button issue right now because so many more people are doing research on not only their condition or disorder, but also on the people whom they seek treatment for it from. I see nothing wrong with that in general. People should educate themselves as much as possible about their disease or disorder before seeing a doctor — that’s just a common-sense thing to do. And if you want to make sure your doc hasn’t been brought up on ethics charges? Again, I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing for most patients to look into.
But Dr. Scott Haig, the author of the Time magazine article, apparently thinks otherwise. He wants perfect patients, you know, the kind that listen to this authority and does what he tells them to do without question:
A seasoned doc gets good at sizing up what kind of patient he’s got and how to adjust his communicative style accordingly. Some patients are non-compliant Bozos who won’t read anything longer than a headline. They don’t want to know what’s wrong with them, they don’t know what medicines they’re taking, they don’t even seem to care what kind of operation you’re planning to do on them. “Just get me better, doc,” is all they say.
At the other end of our spectrum are patients like Susan: They’re often suspicious and distrustful, their pressured sentences burst with misused, mispronounced words and half-baked ideas. Unfortunately, both types of patients get sick with roughly the same frequency.
My reply to Haig? Guess what — that’s life. Not everyone is going to be this perfect patient. If you didn’t get in this field to help people, no matter how “difficult” they may be, then I’m not sure what you’re doing in medicine. Apparently you’d like only the perfectly compliant and perfectly “not too smart, not too dumb” patients.
So bravo to The New York Times and Ms. Parker-Pope for calling this one right. If you have the time, the comments on the blog entry are definitely worth checking out (for their entertainment value and widely discrepant viewpoints).
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2 Comments to
“A Doctor’s Disdain for Medical Googlers”
Being an academic librarian, for me information-seeking is as natural as walking and talking. And I spend my whole working day using the internet. If I encounter a doctor who responds to my information-seeking behaviour by asking whether I don’t trust that doctor, or by offering only reassurances, it makes me nervous.
On the other hand, I did meet one doctor who actually recommended that I should, now that I was post-menopausal, read up on the controversy over homone therapy and let her know my decision about taking it! My unspoken, gut reaction to that was “Hey! You’re the one educated in this field, not me.”
I always research my ailments and everyone else should too. If Google didn’t exist, I would do it at the library or a medical library at my local heath sciences university. As in all professions, there are good and bad problem solvers. Troubleshooting a system, be it biological or man-made, is a complex task. I have had Doctor’s that get it right the first time and those that don’t. The human body is a complex system and there are times when it doesn’t act like all the others.
I hate to say it, but just because one has a doctoral degree, doesn’t mean their an expert at every kind of problem that can occur. For example, I experienced a ruptured appendix because three different doctors, including the surgeon, could not diagnose my appendicitis soon enough. They had two days to figure it out. I kept telling them, based on my googling, an acute appendicitis can present itself without major inflammation. I was also tolerating the pain well and that misled them too (they felt I should be in more pain). After the first emergency room visit, I was sent home with a laughable dose of Vicodin and an inconclusive diagnosis. They actually said it could be a small kidney stone; and, that was after they did the x-ray and CT with a most uncomfortable method of enhancing the visual perspective of my bowel.
Unfortunately, many of the doctors out their don’t really care about your feelings. They have a set routine for diagnosis and if you challenge it, your considered a bozo. You should always get a second, third, or forth opinion if possible.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 27 Nov 2007
