This girl has not yet gone to medical school, and she fully appreciates that her doctors have.
But sometimes, sitting at the patient end of things, I notice a couple of subtle things that my doctors could maybe do a little bit better. I’ve seen a LOT of doctors in my career as an asthmatic -walk-in docs, emergency room docs, family doctors, pulmonologists and anesthesiologists -and most of the time I worship the ground they walk on because they help me breathe and treat me well. Still, here is a list of things I occasionally notice:
1. For Pete’s sake, please introduce yourself to me when you walk in the room. First off, it would be nice of you to let me know that you’re the doctor taking care of me. Also, you get to know *every last detail* about me, can I at least know your name??
2. Please do not talk to me as if I am a baby. I know that you see a ton of patients over the course of a day, all of them having varying degrees of comprehension of their state of health, and you’ve got to find a “one-size-fits-all” patient jargon. But when I come to you as a 20-year-old who gives you a clear and concise description of her symptoms and who shows you that she is informed about asthma and asthma treatments, I would really appreciate it if you would tell it to me as it is. More specifically, if you could use the real name of medications/class of medications and tell me what you plan on giving me and WHY, that would be awesome. It really helps when your doctor shows that they view you as an integral part in attaining optimal health.
3. Please, please, please, do not tell me that since I’m not wheezing that everything is OK, or that maybe it’s not asthma. First of all, it is now well established that not all asthmatics wheeze, that wheezing is not present in every exacerbation, and that absence of wheezing after wheezing was originally heard can be a sign of a worsening attack. My pulmo told me so himself. That aside, when you say this, and I know that I am using my accessory muscles to breathe and speaking in 3 word sentences, it makes me feel like you are not paying attention WHATSOEVER to how my asthma is presenting, and it scares me. It also makes me feel like you think I came in for nothing.
I think that’s it. If every doctor did all these things, I’d be the happiest patient ever. That being said, most doctors do 
and I’m grateful for it.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: Asthma, asthma attack, doctors
This girl has not yet gone to medical school, and she fully appreciates that her doctors have.
But sometimes, sitting at the patient end of things, I notice a couple of subtle things that my doctors could maybe do a little bit better. I’ve seen a LOT of doctors in my career as an asthmatic -walk-in docs, emergency room docs, family doctors, pulmonologists and anesthesiologists -and most of the time I worship the ground they walk on because they help me breathe and treat me well. Still, here is a list of things I occasionally notice:
1. For Pete’s sake, please introduce yourself to me when you walk in the room. First off, it would be nice of you to let me know that you’re the doctor taking care of me. Also, you get to know *every last detail* about me, can I at least know your name??
2. Please do not talk to me as if I am a baby. I know that you see a ton of patients over the course of a day, all of them having varying degrees of comprehension of their state of health, and you’ve got to find a “one-size-fits-all” patient jargon. But when I come to you as a 20-year-old who gives you a clear and concise description of her symptoms and who shows you that she is informed about asthma and asthma treatments, I would really appreciate it if you would tell it to me as it is. More specifically, if you could use the real name of medications/class of medications and tell me what you plan on giving me and WHY, that would be awesome. It really helps when your doctor shows that they view you as an integral part in attaining optimal health.
3. Please, please, please, do not tell me that since I’m not wheezing that everything is OK, or that maybe it’s not asthma. First of all, it is now well established that not all asthmatics wheeze, that wheezing is not present in every exacerbation, and that absence of wheezing after wheezing was originally heard can be a sign of a worsening attack. My pulmo told me so himself. That aside, when you say this, and I know that I am using my accessory muscles to breathe and speaking in 3 word sentences, it makes me feel like you are not paying attention WHATSOEVER to how my asthma is presenting, and it scares me. It also makes me feel like you think I came in for nothing.
I think that’s it. If every doctor did all these things, I’d be the happiest patient ever. That being said, most doctors do
and I’m grateful for it.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: Asthma, asthma attack, doctors