How to Be a Good Patient

There was a time when the doctor/patient relationship was so weighted with deference towards doctors that patients had little say in their care. That is no longer true. Now, patients have access to vast amounts of information about medications, alternative treatments, controversies within the health care profession, and to an ever increasing degree, the performances of doctors and hospitals. Unfortunately, this empowerment has improved neither care nor the doctor/patient relationship. Consider some ways to become a modern, empowered, "good patient."

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Find a primary care doctor (PCP) and establish a long term relationship with him or her. This is important because such a relationship fosters trust—and that's not just a warm fuzzy. An open and trusting relationship between a patient and a PCP makes doctors better doctors and patients better patients. It also decreases the chances of medical errors.
2. Be kind to the office staff. Realize that in any medical office, those who work the front desk and the appointment desk have some of the most difficult jobs in health care: they are caught between patients' needs and limited physician resources. Because they often cannot meet patients demands, they are often the brunt of significant anger and they must sometimes make decisions about the urgency of patients' complaints with minimal knowledge. They are often the lowest paid employees in an office.
3. Have a list of your medications available when you see your doctor. If you have specific questions, have them written down so they are not forgotten. Be specific when you make an appointment about your problems. If you have five chronic problems and one that is acute, don't schedule an appointment for the acute problem with the intention of squeezing in a discussion of the chronic ones. Believe it or not, doctors want to be on time. The greatest cause of schedule disruption is prolonged appointments.
4. Expect your doctor to treat you with the respect and attention you deserve. You are a human being with concerns and fears. If this respect and attention is lacking, even after efforts on your behalf to obtain it, then you may need to change doctors. By the same token, doctors are human beings as well. They should not expect to be treated as "gods," but their humanity should not be ignored or forgotten. Calling a doctor in the middle of the night with a routine problem assumes that he or she never sleeps. Failing to pay a $5 or $10 copay implies that a doctor's work and services are less valuable to you than a hamburger and a soft drink. The ability to empathize with patients, to put oneself in patients' shoes, is one of the skills that characterizes "good" doctors. The ability to do the converse—to put oneself in a doctor's shoes—characterizes good patients.