MedicalDopers: Who Doctors the Doctors?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just a couple of questions for the Dopers out there in the Medical professions/Health Services industry- Doctors, PA’s, Nurse Practitioners, or someone else who fits the criteria:
Could you share a little bit about how you pick your own doctors for your health care visits? Not so much seeing a specialist for a condition and all, but just a general doctor for check ups and things like that.

-If you’re an internal medicine doctor, or a family practice sort of doc- do you go see another Doctor for yearly checkups or do you pretty much just monitor yourselves, and see a doctor whenever you think something’s up?
-If you routinely see someone else, how do YOU pick one? Word of mouth, a friend in the business, someone you’ve just gone to even before medical school, etc?
-How does it feel when you’re the patient? Do you feel your own medical training biases you when you hear their reports, or do you pretty much act like any other patient would?
-And final question: how are your experiences when YOU have to see a doctor as a patient?

Thanks in advance, I’m just curious to hear the thoughts of people out there.

2

Not a physician myself, but both of my parents are, and are practicing.

They’re each a little different, and it entirely has to do with their personalities. My mom is a surgeon, and has a bit of “god complex” going on - to her credit, she’s a brilliant woman, but that also translates into “I can fix anything”.

So she doesn’t have a local PCP, she has the head of internal medicine in a major city as her PCP, who she sees infrequently. She also monitors her blood pressure, pulse, blood sugar, and cholesterol very often - the first three she does weekly, despite being normal in all three areas. She also religiously wears those tight support stockings, to avoid varicose veins. She eats extremely healthy, but she simply eats too much - think two skinless chicken breasts instead of one - , so she’s about 15 lbs overweight. She approaches all physicians she sees personally skeptically, and will cross check nearly all information, either privately or with another physician.

My father, on the other hand, is a good patient - listening to orders, asking questions when necessary, etc. I doubt he has a PCP; because both of them are specialists, they often feel a PCP is someone to lazy or too dumb to have a speciality :stuck_out_tongue: However, he would never let personal feelings get in the way of a procedure he needs - for example, instead of seeing any number of (very qualified) friends for a rotator cuff procedure locally, he traveled to Pittsburgh to have it done by the guy who does the Steelers.

Overall, they see someone who will deliver results, and this comes from simply knowing them and being in the environment. Lots of their friends have varying degrees of bedside manner - this doesn’t matter to either of them at all. They want someone whose results are stellar, who takes his continuing medical education very seriously. Bedside manner is a complete after thought to them.

Overall, a lot of the information they seek is completely test-based or very quantifiable. The physician may interpret it for them, but they will also interpret it for themselves. Being that both parties are highly qualified, this ends up being the same analysis. End of life care and such are entirely different issues they have yet to confront, but are the only things I can consider being an opinion they would seek or would potentially be different than their own in the future.

So how do I approach care? I’m 22, and don’t even have a PCP, though I see a variety of specialist whenever I need to, mostly the dermatologist and the gynecologist. I don’t look for the biggest name (since I’m getting routine care - for a special procedure, I would), but rather someone youngish, so they have more updated information. I approach all advice with a skeptical eye. I also note that when I tell a physician that both of my parents are practicing, they sit up a little straighter and give it to me with more medical jargon - and in turn, educate me a little more.

3

I’m a Family Physician who did formal Peer Review of a lot of physicians in our metro area for years, so I know who’s good and who’s not, or I know how to find out. That’s how I’ve picked primary care docs and a number of specialists for me and my family.

I do see my doc regularly, I am not objective when dealing with my own or my family’s health. The old saw “the physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient” is pretty true.

As a patient, it’s a bit humbling, and helps keep me in touch with the need to communicate clearly with my patients, and listen to them.

My experiences have been pretty good. The docs I see pretty much all know I’m a doc, and are ready to answer my questions at length. If they didn’t, I’d not return to them. I’ve fired a few idiots before. Both as a “Boss of Doctors” and as a patient.

I admit I’ve a leg up in the whole affair by having my own shiny MD degree to subtly flaunt. Frankly, I’d hate to think of shopping for healthcare if you don’t have your own medical degree.

4

Not a doctor or nurse, here - I’m a research coordinator at a hospital and have some “med tech”-type skills too.

I get my medical care, whenever possible, done at the institution I work at, and don’t really shop for doctors so much. If I see a doctor I have issues with, I move on to another - I’ve only seen my internist once ever since her office mixed up my chart, and only because I felt I needed to be seen urgently. (I think she’s very competent but apparently someone who works/worked there isn’t.)

I am discriminating about my specialists, typically - when I broke my wrist I picked the orthopedic practice that is extremely well-regarded, in this state and in the US as well. For that, I didn’t mind a doctor who had somewhat halting “bedside manner” - he’d be plugging along in “very to-the-point” mode now and then, and seem to catch himself and remember to ask a question or make a more personal type of comment. He was absolutely brilliant, though, so I was utterly confident in him.

For a gynecologist, I need a doctor that has a good bedside manner, doesn’t brutalize my innards during the exam, and believes me when I say that I don’t want children. I don’t want my gynecologic health care based around trying to preserve my fertility out of some misguided sense that I have a biological clock that will turn on.

I tend to use medical language when describing my symptoms, etc. I even do this at the vet - when they ask me to tell them what dosage of meds I’ve been giving my ferret, I just spout off “prednisone 0.35 ml po bid” before I even think about what I’ve said. (po bid = by mouth, twice a day)

My experience with helping to treat medical doctors is that they tend to ask a whole lot of questions. Often many more than the average patient. (One doctor stretched out his appointment with our specialist into over an hour!)

5

That is true. I am not stupid, I have a degree in the biological sciences, and I have had several severe medical problems over the years, one almost fatal, and I have encountered and “fired” many doctors. I love the ones I now but it took lots of work and time to get them. Just having an MD after your name still doesn’t mean you know what you are doing. I have even been in the middle of arguments with different doctors who completely disagreed and I had to pick one to listen to in critical situations. This is in the Boston area which is “Healthcare Central” so I don’t want to think what it is like in underserved areas or for people that can’t think for themselves. There are a lot of bad ones out there but the good ones are a godsend.

6

Thanks guys, that exactly the sort of responses I was looking for!

Thanks to all of you guys again!

7

I am lucky enough to have required very little medical care in my lifetime. I have thyroid disease, which has been rock stable for over a decade now. I have the lab at my clinic check my TSH once a year, and a colleague sees me and writes the prescription for my medicine. (Documented, of course.)

When the time comes that I need more regular care (and I’m sure it will soon), I am planning to go well out of town and be outside my own medical community. It’s a small town and we all work together, so I really don’t want anybody I know personally in my business.