As someone who frequents blogs kept by medical school students and health professionals, I've gotten an idea of what doctors' pet peeves are when it comes to patient interactions. For example, doctors generally don't look forward to meeting with patients who refuse to take any advice and at times directly ignore what they're instructed to do for treatment. Doctors don't get their kicks from working with patients or family members who (although in some situations they can be excused, what with emotions running high and all of that) are exceptionally rude to the nurses and staff. Also, doctors don't typically prefer that patients have a consult with Dr. Google before their actual appointment. There is an unfathomable amount of information accessible on the internet, which has the potential to make the right cause of a medical malady as easy to determine as the most ridiculously off-the-mark cause. Hence, from what I've read at least, in these situations doctors often find themselves burdened with the task of not only diagnosing and assigning treatment plans for their patients but also with reassuring them that their pesky case of epistaxis is not the result of an intracerebral hemorrhage.
However, earlier today I was reading a brief excerpt from a doctor's blog that presented an uncharacteristically positive opinion of Dr. Google. Interestingly enough, the author admitted to forming this opinion only after being a cancer patient himself and conducting research on the internet to determine the obscure connection between an unusual symptom he was experiencing and his radiation treatments. Before this experience, he, like the other doctors whose blogs I've read, held the opinion that patients only hindered the expression of his medical opinion when they bombarded him with miscellaneous and often irrelevant health information they had amassed by scrolling through WebMD articles. His change in opinion accompanied a realization that though specialists do have a massive amount of knowledge in their heads, it's humanly impossible to consider every potential origin of an uncommon symptom or side effect. In situations like that which he encountered during his cancer treatment, credible databases and proactive, information-seeking patients can actually assist the practitioner by increasing the diversity of information that is considered when determining a diagnosis or treatment. This reminded me quite a bit about what we were discussing earlier in class today and I just thought it very interesting to see how (despite the many blog posts I've read that assert the contrary), patients who do their research can bring valuable resources to the table and play an active role in their treatment.
Here's a link to the blog post if anyone would like to check it out: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/04/changed-perspective-patient-participation-care.html
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