Medicine is truly frustrating sometimes. And truth be told, it's not until you're a patient that you really understand that. Until you're experiencing this yourself, you can really only pretend to know what it's like. It's worse when you're a physician-turned-patient: you confront the reality of the system first-hand, from the other perspective now. Your authority as doctor, your white coat, your medical knowledge hold no water. They don't help you, because you are now in the role of patient, and that's that.
It is so unbelievably frustrating to visit many different doctors, to be referred to various specialists, only to realize that each and every provider has their own opinion, and sometimes even their own agenda. As if it isn't stressful enough to be diagnosed with an illness - no matter what kind of illness that is - being shuttled back and forth between different physicians, being told one thing by one but a different thing by someone else... Not to mention the frustration of being stuck with an IV a thousand times over for a thousand different scans and diagnostic tests and procedures. I'm not even the one this is all happening to, and I'm tired of it all at this point - I can only imagine how my mother feels about it all.
The illness experience isn't limited to the patient - it affects the entire family. I wouldn't wish this kind of stress upon anyone.
It is so unbelievably frustrating to visit many different doctors, to be referred to various specialists, only to realize that each and every provider has their own opinion, and sometimes even their own agenda. As if it isn't stressful enough to be diagnosed with an illness - no matter what kind of illness that is - being shuttled back and forth between different physicians, being told one thing by one but a different thing by someone else... Not to mention the frustration of being stuck with an IV a thousand times over for a thousand different scans and diagnostic tests and procedures. I'm not even the one this is all happening to, and I'm tired of it all at this point - I can only imagine how my mother feels about it all.
The illness experience isn't limited to the patient - it affects the entire family. I wouldn't wish this kind of stress upon anyone.
