How you can help your doctor help you (5 ways)
In this article, we will describe how you can help your doctor help you (5 ways).
This might sound odd, but it is important to realise that you, and not your doctors, are in charge of your medical care.
Doctors are not all-powerful, and you are not powerless.”
1. Perception of doctors
Doctors are human. They make mistakes, have arguments with their wife or husband – and importantly, have varying levels of knowledge, skill and experience. Doctors burn out.
So the first hurdle is to shift your perception of doctors, from benevolent dictators who do not make mistakes, to employees that do. As a taxpayer, you pay their salary and the costs of running the NHS in general.
So you should expect the same level of service from the doctor or hospital as you would expect from any other business. You should be more demanding of your doctors, especially when it comes to communication and access to your medical records.
People expect their banks or supermarkets to offer online access. But when it comes to medical records, or the ability to ring or email your doctor, people say, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to bother them… I expect they are busy’. This is probably true, but a. most docs like being busy, and b. you are too!
2. Be politely assertive
The second most important thing is to be (politely) assertive. You will need this to obtain the best possible treatment, especially if you do not think its good enough at present.
Even if you are healthy and have not had much experience in dealing with doctors, you should still assert yourself in small but meaningful ways.
For instance, make a (perhaps jokey!) comment if the doctor is running an hour late. Or tell them you left a message on their secretary’s phone twice in the last week, and there has been no reply.
You wouldn’t accept that from a solicitor whose services you are paying for, or if you are picking up your car from a mechanic at an agreed time. So do not accept it from your doctor.
3. Medical record
Keep your own medical record. Full stop. Why? As we all know GP, hospital and pharmacy computers do not link up, So there may be several mistakes in your records. It is yup to you to keep correct information near to you.
What should this information contain?
- A summary of your healthcare over your life. These can be physical or computer notes, or photos on your phone.
- A list of long-term conditions (e.g. CKD), operations, hospital letters (e.g. from clinic or a discharge summary after a hospital admission, and a drug and allergy list.
- A print out (or photo on your phone) of the medications you take, given to you by the pharmacy when you collect your medications. If you do not have one, your GP surgery can reprint this list easily for you.
MyHSN has more advice here on how to keep a medical record. This action is an important way you can help your doctor reduce errors.
4. Self monitoring
Many diseases – especially ‘silent’ diseases like diabetes, CKD, cholesterol and high blood pressure – can be monitored by you, partly in your own home, and partly with the help of a practice nurse at your GPs. You can also focus on other diseases (called ‘comorbidities’) that affect the condition(s) you are trying to monitor – e.g. your mental health can affect physical symptoms.
5. Knowledge
Read up on your conditions. There are a lot of good patient books and websites out there, and disease-specific charities often have useful information. Taking charge of your healthcare can also be a real confidence boost.
Summary
We have described how you can help your doctor help you (5 ways). We hope it has been useful.
Other resources
MyHSN has related articles.
10 ways to improve self-management
5 ways to get better care from your GP or consultant
[“Hint: Remember, there is nothing wrong with questioning authority, and not just when it comes to healthcare. Experts can get things wrong – COVID-19 has shown us that!” MyHSN Ed]
