Do you trust your doctor? I do--with a bit of hestitation though. After my dad's death, we realized that his doctor had been grossly negligent in treating him--my dad had dozens of appointments where he complained of his failing health and asked his doctor to put him through tests to figure out what was wrong with him. His doctor's solution was to not screen him for anything and instead telling him it was just age catching up with him and prescribing him 600 heavy-duty painkillers to mask the pain he experienced while he was slowly dying. My dad trusted his doctor to look out for him and paid for it with his life. Though I'm wary, most people do trust their doctors--more than any other professional they deal with in fact, a study shows. Not surprisingly, lawyers and politicians are the least-trusted. What do you think about these results? Are we right to trust out doctors? Or should we be taking more responsibility for our health and not relying on a virtual stranger to look out for our best interests?
1. "With a bit of hesitation though." I like that Martha. It would be important to know if the doctors and the hospital system involved with your father's care felt there was truly a difference of medical opinion, what was their rational for their treatments, actions and decisions were and how they view the apparant breakdowns in work up/follow through/obligation to give thorough information to patient's risk/benefit discussions and what they would do to improve the situation.
Posted at 12:28PM on Aug 4th 2007 by Gregory D. Pawelski