A Few Good Doctors - Don't look for them on a magazine top-10 list: "The doctor-patient relationship is just that, a relationship, full of all the nonsense and idiosyncrasy that defines the genre. It's why good doctoring has a magic quality, like a good friendship. The intricacy of this symbiosis also is why a 'best doctor' can't be determined by asking a bunch of professors whom they might send their brother-in-law to.
Which is not to say the search for a solid doctor is hopeless—just that the guidebook approach has made the task more complicated than it needs to be. Below is my simple one-two-three approach. It's even in glossy-magazine format.
1) Trust your instincts: There are lots of rotten doctors, really really lousy ones, wretched souls you wouldn't want to know as people, much less trust with your health. But they aren't any harder to suss out than the schmucks you meet in everyday life. If your gut says run, then run.
2) Don't trust your instincts if a scalpel is involved: Subjective impression is meaningless when selecting a surgeon. Craft should trump your desire to like them; in fact, it's OK to hate your surgeon. You simply need him to cut and sew very intelligently. So always select the surgeon who has already done the most iterations of whatever procedure you need. Stated in Zagat-ian terms: Which restaurant do you want to go to—the one with the line or the one that sits empty?
3) Shop around: Diagnosticians, sensitive (and craftless) souls that we are, succeed only if we connect. A doctor who is beloved by one person can be a disaster for the next. Think of who ended up marrying whom—there simply is no accounting for taste. So look before you buy. Yes, it takes time, it takes money, it is humiliating and ridiculous and maybe just a sinister plot to give doctors more business. Do it anyway, and do it when you are well."
Excellent advise from a doctor who appears on a Top-10 list. You can use it for everything - including looking for a wife; or a college !
No comments:
Post a Comment