Quick announcement: For the Spring Semester, starting in December, due to authors traveling abroad (to Italy, South Africa, France, and more!), Unleashed is being published once a month. This semester, we will include guest articles written by people of interest: musicians, wise parents and more surprises to come!
KURTIS MORRISH
You may walk the walk, but can you talk the talk...
with your
doctor?
Although most physicians are uniformed by a white coat, they are all
very different in their approach to medicine, bedside manner, and social
skills. As a patient, your access to care as well as your physician’s ability
to help you are intrinsically linked to the relationship that you develop and
maintain with your doctor. This may seem self-evident, and by no means am I
saying that you need to become best friends with your doc (though some people
are), but don't underestimate the benefit of having a meaningful and
comfortable conversation each time you visit your doctor.
As much as North Americans and Europeans tend to view
western medicine as the ultimate authority for addressing health concerns, the
fact remains that a physician is limited by the information he or she might get from patients. There is only so much a blood test, x-ray, or throat swab can tell a
doctor. At the end of the day, it is often up to you to provide certain key
details necessary for an accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment!
Here are five key points to keep in mind every time you go
to the doctor (they are not listed here in
any particular order of importance, so let's not be lazy; read on through-- it will help you in the long run!):
1. Lifestyle
There are many aspects of your life that affect your health, but many of us don’t always think to discuss them with
our doctor. Start by discussing what it
is to be you: where do you work? go to school? both? what do you do in your
spare time? significant other? How much do you sleep? How often do you
eat and how much? what is going on in your life that’s got you excited? --anxious? --happy? --afraid?
It is important to discuss theses features of your life as
they currently exist, but almost more important is how they have changed. For
example, you used to go to school, but now you are part-time at school and
part-time working, which may seem manageable on paper, but the reality could be
that half of your shifts are night shifts, so you are a "normal" person Sunday
through Wednesday, and then you don’t see the sunlight from Wednesday until
Sunday... Be intimate about how these changes have affected your life, and do
not hesitate to complain! There are no judgements coming from your doctor. All your doctor cares about is your health.
Though you may not be the type to overshare, and you assume your
doctor doesn’t want to hear your wailing, let the physician sort through what
is significant and what is not; you provide the raw material (your life story),
and they (if they are a good doctor) will provide the refined product (your
treatment).
2. Details
Building off of the last point, don’t forget to go right
into the nitty gritty details of your condition. No one knows what its like to
live in your body like you do. You are the expert on how you feel, what you’ve
been through, and what you are hoping to get out of your visit to your doctor.
So take advantage of that and dive into the specifics of what it is you are
going through. When you talk about pain, describe what it feels like-- is it off
and on? --constant? --subtle but unforgettable? --what does it feel like? --where does
it feel like the pain is coming from? This last one can be tough sometimes. Though a scrape or cut will have fairly obvious localized pain, internal
afflictions such as gall stones may not trigger pain in your gall bladder
itself, but rather manifest itself as crippling pains spread across your back,
upper abdomen or even shoulders. Be explicit and give as many details as your
mind can muster in the moment!
3. History
This one is particularly important if you are seeing a new
doctor. They will ask you about your own personal medical history as well as
your family medical history, but make sure you touch on other details of your
life such as where you’ve lived, what you’ve done for work, and events in your
life that have and may continue to affect your own physical and psychological
health.
Don’t forget to talk about vaccinations you may have had,
serious illnesses you’ve been through, injuries, surgeries (minor or major),
any times you’ve been in the hospital, and especially what you are afraid may
have stuck with you over the years (this could be a disease, a chronic pain, a
susceptibility to a certain condition like strep throat or even insomnia).
4. Diet
Your doctor may enquire about your appetite, and ask you if
you are eating more or less these days, but they may not go into what you are eating... What are your
favorite foods? What do you eat
the most of? What do you hate eating? Are you taking any nutritional
supplements? These are all important elements of your lifestyle that should not
be ignored! Again, it is better to say too much and let the doctor decide what
is relevant.
You may notice random cravings for specific foods or food
groups that seem to come and go in weekly phases. Some people liken these
cravings to your body’s recognition of a certain nutrient that your body needs or wants more of. Randomly craving dairy products like yogurt, cheese, or milk, for instance, if you have a low-dairy diet... You may also crave fruit,
particularly citrus fruits if your body is looking for vitamin C!
Talk about these things with your doctor. Some physicians
will know more than others about nutritional science and food health, but many
afflictions can be helped, if not cured, by simply changing your diet!
5. Be Open!
There is no such thing as TMI once you enter your doctor’s
office. Treat your conversation with your doctor as a release: a safe place
where you can divulge the most intimate details of your existence at no extra
cost, just go for it! Some doctors may go out of their way to encourage an
honest and open relationship by divulging their own embarrassing or personal
secrets to you as a way of sharing the experience, but do not expect this with
all docs...
There is nothing awkward about your body that is worth
keeping secret at the sake of your health. Some things about your body may
seem so strange and embarrassing to you that you don’t even feel comfortable
saying the words that describe what you are going through, so practice by just
saying the words of your condition. By yourself in total privacy. Just say to
yourself, out loud, what’s going on. This may make it easier to get the words
out when you see your doctor, or at least help you begin to think about how you
are going to explain your condition.
On a closing note, remember that your doctor’s office is not
a salon that you visit in order to sit there passively while someone else works
on you; it is a place where you and your doctor are both at work, together, to help you, and to continue to improve the condition of your
health.
Help them help you, and try to have fun while you’re at it! White coats or no, each doctor has a fascinating story. Tell them yours for the benefit of your health, maybe you'll even get one in return.
Feel free to contact columnists at Unleashed
Medical Section Columnist, Kurtis Morrish:
My name is Kurtis Morrish. I graduated from Cal last year as an Integrative Biology major. I am now in the process of applying to medical school in the hopes of one day serving people as a family doctor. By no means do I write to you as an M.D., but I have extensive experience doing all kinds of scientific research; boiling-down long, dry, mumbo-jumbo-dense medical journals into a reduction that is a little sweeter, useful, and hopefully informative for you. I hope to learn as much from my writing as you do, so please hit me up with further questions, concerns, or comments!
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