IUBio

For Doctors and Patients a little wisdom from a friend of mine.

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Thu Jul 23 21:55:04 EST 1998


A few truisms and platitudes never hurt anybody, UNLESS POSTED IN A
NEWSGROUP WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG!

FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE WE NEVER GOING TO SEE A neuroscience POSTING
AGAIN??  (n.b.: NEUROscience, not neurotic"science")




In <1998072221352800.RAA02737 at ladder01.news.aol.com> ateasd5941 at aol.com
(ATeasd5941) writes: 
>
>For Doctors and Patients a little wisdom from a friend of mine.
>
>Carol T
>                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>Not to be critical per se,
>but find a doctor who is willing to THINK and
>not just practice medicine on auto-pilot (or cruise-control)!
>
>Auto-pilot is great for getting you through routine tasks
>that truly do not require thinking -- but it is a recipe for
>disaster when thought is needed.  Unfortunately the
>professional who auto-pilots when he shouldn't
>(be he doctor, lawyer, or whatever) rarely suffers the 
>disaster's effects personally.
>
>And unfortunately there are some doctors out there who just
>want to putter along on auto-pilot. And there are people who
>put their health, unquestioningly, into these people's hands.
>And that is not good for either participant.
>
>The other side of this is the patient's responsibility not to
>auto-pilot.  Not to just sit back and let the doctor "do his
>doctoring stuff, 'cause he's the expert".  To actively monitor
>one's health and report things that don't fit.  To check the
>doctor's diagnosis against one's own intimate knowledge of
>self (you do allow yourself to be aware of your body, yes?
>not avoiding it as somehow sinful?  or unrefined? ) and to 
>question when they don't seem to fit.
>
>All these fancy tests that technology has devised are in many
>ways wonderful, and they allow us to determine things we
>couldn't find out any other way.  But they complement, not
>replace, our somasthetic perceptions -  whether as ill-defined as 
>"feeling good"/"feeling bad" or as specific as "I have a sharp
>pain right HERE".  A doctor who relies only on one of these
>two sources of information is not doing his job properly.
>
>A patient who denies the doctor access to the one source
>that only the patient can supply, is truly not doing HIS job.
>
>SO get to know your body, after all you are only going to 
>live in it for the rest of your life (no chances to "trade up"
>like with your house, or "trade in" as with your car).  And 
>when it starts going Phfft instead of Purrr under the hood,
>(or bonnet) well, get to the doctor right away, before the 
>black smoke comes pouring out from in under the hood 
>(bonnet).  If you ignore the warning signals and your car
>dies on the road, well, time to buy a new car.  But, if you
>ignore the warning signals of your body . . .
>-- 
>Kevin G. Rhoads, Ph.D.
>T_Rhoads at NO_SPAM.Classic.MSN.COM
>KRhoads at NO_SPAM.CmpNetMail.com




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