Simon and I have both had more than an average number of medical appointments in the last eighteen months. Between pre-natal visits, gastroenterology, well-baby checks, and the cleft-palate team, I would say we’ve seen our fair share of medical professionals. Many times (but not all — we have some fantastic providers), I leave an appointment feeling vaguely irritated, but have had trouble putting my finger on why. It’s taken me eighteen months to figure out that it’s because one of the four following rules has been broken. (But now that I know why things bug me, I can let them go more easily, at least in theory.)
1. Introduce yourself.
It takes about five seconds, tops. It’s something our culture thinks is polite. Are you going to touch me or my child? When all is going well, only people I know do that, so it would be nice if I knew your name.
2. Read the chart.
It will save me from having to repeat myself. It will make you look like a genius with a really good memory. It says “I care.” Asking someone for information on their chart looks lazy.
3. Take two minutes to determine how smart I am.
This will keep you from wasting your time explaining things I already know or things I have no chance of understanding. A good way to do this is to ask what I do professionally. From this you can discern my general level of education and my familiarity with topics we are going to discuss. High school science teacher? Can probably read graphs and very likely knows some basic anatomy vocabulary.
4. I should leave feeling as though I’m doing something right.
Because if all I get is messages about how I need to change what I’m doing, it’s depressing, and doesn’t empower me to change anything. Likewise, leaving with a list of things I need to do (say, for my child) is overwhelming if I don’t feel like what I’ve been doing is adequate. Now, maybe it hasn’t been, but if you can find one tiny thing to affirm, I have somewhere to start.
The next step is learning how to firmly and courteously assert myself when I get irritated. Saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…” or “Hmm, I think that’s in my chart,” in my head is one thing, but actually saying it to a person is quite another.
Tags: medical
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Couldn’t agree more!
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Great advice! I will always try to keep that in mind when practicing. It would be hard for me to ask a family member’s profession for me. I mean, I guess I would get used to it if I worked with peds all the time.
Just a thought, but they may ask you questions about things that are already in your chart just to confirm that the chart is correct. We always take our own medical history and sometimes catch things that other clinicians missed or got wrong. Maybe that’s why they ask questions that have already been answered, or maybe they truly are just lazy.
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Kimberly, good point about double-checking the chart. Some people phrase it like “your chart says…but are you still?” and other people just ask the same questions every time they see you. I was thinking in particular of one student midwife I saw when I was overdue with Simon (thus really impatient, sensitive, intolerant of repeating myself). She was explaining the induction process to me, and I interrupted her to say I didn’t need all the prep because I was ready to go (let the reader understand), and she kept insisting that I had to do all the prep. I was this close to saying “No. Did you read my (expletive) chart?!?” But then the real midwife came in and I made her set the record straight. As you can see, I’m still kind of worked up about it.
Also, be sure to give warning before palpating someone’s kneecap or they might accidentally kick you in the face.
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Good points! However, I doubt that doctors, particularly pediatricians, are going to start asking parents what they do for a living. Plenty of stay-at-home parents out there would probably get huffy, particularly if they haven’t ever done anything professionally!
Perhaps you could ensure these points are following by greeting the doctor with “I’m a high-school science teacher, what’s your name?”.
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My favorite providers are the ones who put a little EXTRA note in your chart with patient trivia, ie. “Husband works at Intel. Next time: ask about son’s pirate party!” Because then they not only look like geniuses, they actually seem to care about me as a person. I’m a sucker for that stuff, especially with my OB/GYN. Because, folks, that’s a pretty personal relationship.
I think it’s interesting that Beeman and Kimb both feel like docs might not feel comfortable asking about your profession, and can definitely see how some patients might not like it either. This, I guess, is where the firm and courteous assertiveness comes in handy. When I was in college, I had a doctor kindly try to explain to me the structure of the lungs, and I just went ahead and interrupted him, like, “OK, just came from the cadaver lab. I already know about the pleura.” Did that annoy the doc? Maybe. But I saved us both some time, and at least I wasn’t annoyed!
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