DrRich doesn’t want to slip into an “every man for himself” frame of mind, but it’s still true that no one cares about your health more than you do. To become a truly effective patient, you’ve got to be deeply invested in promoting your own health.
By “promoting your own health,” we mean doing four things: become as knowledgeable as possible about your own health conditions; take good care of yourself; make the most of your encounters with your doctor; and keep careful records.
Become as knowledgeable as possible
Learning as much as possible about your heart condition is a simple matter of self-preservation. Even under an ideal health care system (which, most assuredly, we don’t have,) doctors won’t always have the time or the inclination to discuss every important aspect of all your medical conditions. The more you teach yourself about those conditions, the better off you’ll be. You’ll be better able to interpret what your doctor is saying, and you’ll even be able to steer your discussions into the areas that are most pertinent to you. You’ll have a better understanding of what your doctor thinks should be accomplished, and a better grasp of what you can do to help accomplish it. Knowledge allows you to become an active participant, rather that a passive one, in managing your health care.
As an added bonus, by becoming highly educated about your health – and perhaps more importantly, by seeming to be highly educated – you will automatically make yourself ineligible for rationing by omission. Nobody would dare try to withhold information from you if they thought you were probably already aware of all the options. Educating yourself is the best defense you can use in our increasingly hostile health care system.
There are many ways to become more knowledgeable about your health care. Start with this web site, which has hundreds of pages of information on heart conditions, as well as serving as a gateway to other Internet resources. Then check your public library. Your librarian can point you to helpful books and articles about cardiovascular disorders.
Take good care of yourself
It goes without saying that you will enjoy better health if you do all those things you know you should be doing, things like giving up tobacco, maintaining an ideal body weight, cutting down on saturated fats, and getting plenty of exercise. If your doctor has you on a particular medical regimen (such as taking prescription drugs), make sure you follow that regimen religiously.
You gain direct health benefits from doing these things, as you well know. What you may not have realized, however, is the secondary gain you receive. By taking a genuine interest in trying to keep yourself healthy, you also endear yourself to your physician. You enlist him to your cause. Doctors should be engaged in the care of each of their patients, of course. That’s what it is supposed to mean to be a doctor. But, you know by now, they can’t. They’re under steady, unrelenting and overwhelming pressure to make the interests of their patients secondary to the interests of the HMO, of the government, and ultimately, of society at large. They simply cannot go to bat for all their patients. Some (the ones HMOs like the best, and the ones you have tried to avoid) won’t go to bat for any of their patients.
The many doctors who still maintain a strong sense of professional pride (the recalcitrants, the ones you have tried to choose for yourself) will still try to advocate for their patients, at least as circumstances allow. These, however, need to marshal their energies carefully. When they do go out on a limb for their patients, they are much more likely to do so for patients who are assiduously trying to help themselves. If the patient won’t accept responsibility for his own health, it’s not realistic to expect the doctor to jeopardize her career for the patient’s health. Continue reading Managing Your Own Health