You & Your Doctor - Part 2

October 4, 2012

Interview with Dr. Peter Ubel, author of the book Critical Decisions: How You and Your Doctor Can Make the Right Medical Choices Together

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Mike Carruthers:
When you and your doctor discuss medical advice it’s not just up to the doctor.

Dr. Peter Ubel:
Because the right medical choice isn’t always a medical matter it sometimes depends on value judgments and the values that often matter and those of my patients.
 

Dr. Peter Ubel, author of the book Critical Decisions, says he knows of a cancer doctor…

Who couldn’t understand why patients would think it’s bad news to find out they had localized prostate cancer - because in her experience it was such a minor diagnosis. That doctors lost touch with what it feels like to be a patient. And so one of the things you need to understand as a patient is you know that doctor may not know what I’m feeling anymore I need to let them know my feelings. The other thing that happens is we sometimes forget that doctors have feelings.

As it turns out doctors do have feelings and they really hate giving bad news. So it’s very common for a doctor to deliver bad news…

And then immediately goes on to a highly technical discussion of the biology of their illness - just to get away from those negative emotions. And when you understand that about your doctor maybe you’re better able to say, “Wait, wait slow down doctor” and then bring that conversation back to what you care about.

Doctor Ubel says in some fascinating studies….

4 out of 5 times when the patient expresses negative emotions when they say I’m scared doctor, I’m in pain, 4 out of 5 (this is experienced oncologists (cancer doctors) will do nothing to respond to that negative emotion. They’ll deflect it; they’ll change the topic – what’s going on there? I think partly they don’t know how to handle it.