Word: doctorings
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...tend to be influenced by the last experience we had or something that made a deep impression on us," Groopman says. So if it's January, your doctor has just seen 14 patients with the flu and you show up with muscle aches and a fever, he or she is more likely to say you have the flu--which is fine unless it's really meningitis or a reaction to a tetanus shot that you forgot to mention...
...best defense--besides giving as complete a history as you can--is to be alert and ready to ask questions anytime a doctor says, "There's a lot of this going around...
...just do something. Stand there," one of Groopman's mentors told him years ago when he was uncertain of a diagnosis. This buys a doctor time to think--which is especially important when trying to ensure that something hasn't been overlooked...
Groopman cautions that emotions are more of an issue than most physicians like to admit. Doctors who are particularly fond of a patient have been known to miss the diagnosis of a life-threatening cancer because they just didn't want it to be true. But negative emotions can be just as blinding, sometimes stopping a doctor from going the extra mile. "If you sense that your doctor is irritated with you, that he or she doesn't like you," says Groopman, "then it's time to get a new doctor." Studies show that most patients are pretty accurate...
Groopman's book makes abundantly clear that despite all the electronic databases that are being used to improve health care, a lot of medicine still comes down to a doctor or two puzzling out what might be wrong with your body. Experience, common assumptions and human nature can guide them or lead them astray. By asking a few questions--especially if you think your doctor isn't asking enough of them--you can raise the odds that your physician won't get detoured from the truth...