My Doctor Knows “Everything”
Do you say the same thing about your doctor? If you do, then you should already think twice. Don’t get me wrong that you must get all dubious about your doctor’s diagnosis of what ailment you may have and about the prescriptions given to you. Anyway, they are doctors – they are supposed to know what they’re doing – they didn’t spend a decade or so finishing their profession just for nothing. What I’m trying to say is that as patients, we also play a very critical role when we are diagnosed with a certain condition, whether it is a life-threatening illness (malignant tumor, HIV/AIDS, SPTCL etc.) or a non-life-threatening one, you must be curious about the diagnosis and the prescribed treatment. You must do your own research. We have to accept the fact: Doctors don’t know “everything” – and that fact will never change and that is the reason people seek second medical opinion.
“Post diagnosis – not dubious but be curious.”
Why is it important for you to back your diagnosis up with your own research when the reason you came to a doctor is to seek professional and medical help?
Let me answer you with dismaying real-life cases where merely relying on the initial diagnoses, which were wrong medical diagnoses, led to much worse health conditions. Unfortunately, wrong medical diagnoses could also lead to… death. Let me start with Ted Blackwell who was misdiagnosed by doctors from a Kaiser clinic in California with headache attributed to grief over the bereavement of his brother eight days prior to visiting the clinic. He complained experiencing headache and neck pain – he only received an injection and was sent home. Almost a week later he suffered permanent brain damage. His initial diagnosis should’ve been cerebral bleeding. Next, who is now a patient advocate because of her experience of misdiagnosis, Trisha Torrey. She was misdiagnosed with Subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma (SPTCL) in 2002 and was advised by her oncologist to undergo chemotherapy for two years. SPCTL is a very rare cancer type that proposes a fast death sentence. If not for Trisha’s curiosity, she could’ve undergone chemotherapy treating a cancer she never had. She refused to undergo chemo and what she did instead was to approach one doctor to another until she met her new doctor who recommended her biopsy to be sent to the National Institutes of Health. After three weeks, she was confirmed that she did not have cancer – her correct diagnosis was panniculitis, an inflammation of fat cells. If Trisha wasn’t a curious patient, she could’ve undergone chemotheraphy and could’ve died during the treatment like other cases of people who were misdiagnosed of SPCTL.
Wrong medical diagnosis can lead to much worse health conditions and unfortunately, death.
Doctors are supposed to know what they are doing, surely they do – this is the case most of the time. If we turn the table, we can’t blame that doctors have a lot of patients to attend to so the quality of prognosis may be lost. There are doctors who may easily jump to conclusions and there are those who may prioritize profit more than genuine health care. Whatever reasons doctors may have, patients will never actually know. What you will only know as a patient is that you have the power to claim your right medical diagnosis. You must track your own symptoms, get second or third opinions and educate yourself of what you’re going through. Your life doesn’t lie in the hands of your doctors alone but in yours, primarily. Again, your doctor doesn’t know “everything.”
