Dr. Peter J. Weiss

A friend called recently look­ing for some health­care advice.

A local physi­cian had just rec­om­mended that he have an inva­sive pro­ce­dure and my friend was ner­vous about it.  As he began to share the med­ical details, I focused my mind and began to recall all the facts I could about his prob­lem.  (Since I’ve been out of prac­tice a while this can be hard some­times.)

The fear of “offend­ing the doc­tor” remains an all too com­mon sit­u­a­tion in health­care today.

Towards the end of his expla­na­tion I was begin­ning to for­mu­late my reply, and he star­tled me by ask­ing this ques­tion, “So, how do I go about get­ting a sec­ond opin­ion with­out offend­ing Dr. X?”

He didn’t want my advice on his medial care!  He wanted advice on how to fig­ure out what was best for him with­out offend­ing his doc­tor, and he was pretty ner­vous about it!  I had mixed feel­ings.

Truth­fully, I wasn’t really qual­i­fied to give him any advice on his health con­di­tion any­way.  So I was happy about not being asked to do so, but I was sad that he was so wor­ried about upset­ting the doc­tor.

I don’t like it but many peo­ple are like my friend.  This fear of “offend­ing the doc­tor” remains an all too com­mon sit­u­a­tion in health­care today.

Yes doc­tors have feel­ings and we should all be polite, but let’s get over the idea that ask­ing for a sec­ond opin­ion is being a trou­ble­some patient.  I’ll put it to you straight — any physi­cian that would get offended by a rea­son­able request for a sec­ond opin­ion is not a physi­cian you want.

I believe most doc­tors will agree with me on that.

But, as they say, “it takes two to tango,” and physi­cians aren’t the only par­tic­i­pants in this dys­func­tional dynamic.  Was my friend’s dis­com­fort jus­ti­fied?

I know his doc­tor to be a kind and even-tempered man, and I don’t think he would take offense at a polite but direct request for another opin­ion.  Yet my friend was still ner­vous.

How about you?  What fears do you have about being in charge of your own health and health­care?  The doc­tors work for you.

How can you get com­fort­able express­ing your­self and doing what’s right for you regard­less of their advice?  Like it or not, you are respon­si­ble for your own health and health­care.

Don’t be afraid to be in charge.

You can do it!