Why are we always so quick to surrender authority to someone else when it comes to decisions about ourselves? Specifically, why is it that as soon as we are in the presence of a person in a white coat we automatically assume they know more about our state of being than we do?
You’d think it would be the opposite; that we are going to know how our body reacts in certain situations far better than someone who has only met us once or twice.
"Now that's strange; I've never seen that before. Are you sure you've done everything I told you to do?" This implies it could never be the doctor’s fault that you've swollen up like a bright red balloon after having an allergic reaction to something even though you had warned him about it. His reply? "Nobody has any problems with that."
I've had sort of a hit and miss relationship with the medical profession over the years. I'd been accused of exaggerating the amount of pain I was in after knee surgery by some arrogant prick of a resident who told to stop being a baby and that they were going to send me home. When he went to recast me (whoever had put the cast on after surgery had forgotten there might be some post surgical swelling and my circulation was cut off so badly my toes turned black until they got someone to loosen the cast) he discovered an infection in the incision that accounted for the amount of pain I was in. Oops! The patient was right, not the doctor.
The latest fad in hospitals is to reduce stays as much as possible, all in the name of the almighty dollar. Get that patient in and out as fast as possible, or heck, don't even keep them if we can help it. Let the family deal with them at home. So what if they can't walk? Procedures like gall bladder removal, hernia repair, and appendix yanks that used to require a minimum of a day or two in the hospital are now Day Surgery, in and out the same day, or at best an overnight stay.
To be fair, the doctors don't set a lot of this policy. These are the guidelines they are forced to follow by the hospitals. I'm sure they were asked what, under ideal conditions, was the minimum amount of time needed for recovery for each of those procedures, and were then instructed to adhere to that schedule. My complaint is that perhaps the doctors could take each patient into consideration as an individual instead of treating us all as a singular mass.
I believe these new guidelines are probably costing them more money in the long run than if they had kept the patients in for the amounts of time they had previously. If they were to examine the numbers of patients who have to come back to hospital within days of being released and be readmitted or treated for extensive time in emergency, they would probably find they are spending the same or more money on patient care now than they were before.
Article comments
1 - Justene
The last time I disagreed with a doctor on how to handle a problem (I decided to follow the advice of another doctor who had treated the condition more often), I got a certified letter firing me as a patient. Finding a new dr in the US is difficult.
2 - Howard Dratch
Richard. So sorry you had to go through more. The only consolation is that the brain is supposed to be unable to remember pain -- don't believe everything you hear, either.
I have a growing hernia which is waiting for my next visit to Miami where it is ambulatory surgery rather than here where it is operating room and "hospital" stay and probably massive infection. So thanks for making me feel so comfortable about it. I can hardly wait.
As for Justene -- luckily I have good and pleasant doctors in Miami perhaps because they are originally of El Salvador and Paraquay. The idea of a "certified letter firing me as a patient" is obscene. If any such thing happens it is for you to write them the letter -- they are the consultant and you are the employer.