How to Be a Good Patient

Here's the rub. We want patients who are invested, involved, and active in their care and treatment plan. We advocate for patients to take control of their health and make their medical decisions. But many physicians also dread the patient who is too "high maintenance." We seldom enjoy the patient who has printed out reams of paper from websites about their symptoms, disease, or drugs. Patients who shop around multiple physicians for second, third, fourth opinions undermine the trust of the patient-doctor relationship. And occasionally, it can be frustrating to work with a patient who has her mind set on what she wants and will take nothing else. Some of this is historic, echoing the days when medicine was very paternal; some of it relates to our feeling that four years of medical school, three to ten years of residency, and experience drawn from practice gives us an element that cannot be gleaned from the internet.

But it's a difficult balance for patients. Naturally, you will look something up about your surgery, disease, medication, or symptom. You'll begin to accumulate questions. You might convince yourself that one approach, test, or treatment is best. And then you might arrive at your doctor's office expecting it and ready to demand it if it's not offered. Somewhere in this process, you will have switched out your hat from the one being treated to the one treating, and this can be off-putting for physicians. I think doctors need to recognize this human tendency and work with it, affirming the patient's thought process or explaining why it might not be the best course. We should not view these patients as "difficult" because they aren't; they're scared, anxious, motivated, and involved in their own care. All of this is better than the other extreme, the patient who does not take care of her health, takes medications sporadically, doesn't engage her practitioners, and expects everything to be done for her.