Disenchantment with Doctors
This entry was posted on 4/22/2007 1:33 PM and is filed under Our Medical System.
I attended a presentation about a cancer treatment approach at a major hospital. The two surgeons who were presenting are well known and respected in the community. The audience consisted of about 30 men who have prostate cancer and about 10 partners. The presentation was well done and very informative. It was my conversation with one of the surgeons and my perception of the handling of the question and answer session that bothered me.
The men in the audience are scared. They are confronting some very difficult issues. They are not necessarily familiar with medical terminology. Yet during the Q & A there was an impatience, a somewhat patronizing attitude coming from the physicians. This occurred particularly when someone asked a question that was similar to one that had already been asked. It didn’t help that one of the docs was periodically checking his watch during the questions.
What I also found disappointing was a discussion I had after the meeting with one of the physicians. I asked if the community had a sufficient number of support groups to address the need. He said he didn’t have a clue. This bothered me. He was doing a potentially traumatic surgery on men but didn’t have any idea what follow-up support existed in the community.
The other thing that was bothersome was his attitude toward the treatment I had undergone. He was very dismissive. He said when the American Urological Association accepts the procedure and there is 10 to 15 years of good American research to back it up, then he will take a look at it. I pointed out that there are 15 years of usage in Europe with research. He responded by saying that he wasn’t interested in research out of some Eastern European journal. I noted his adding the word "Eastern" and what he was implying by that. HIFU treatment and research is actually carried out mainly in Germany, Japan, Austria, and Great Britian.
I left there kind of sad. So many physicians seem to be in their own world, often disconnected from the world of the patients. Medicine doesn’t seem to be focused on the whole person. There is a conceit about their own way of doing things and doctors so often seem more interested in protecting their own turf than in exploring what is best for the patients.
