Poll: Googlers & Petit Papier Patients

Comments

November 16, 2007 at 7:22 am

(1) Laura says:

along with the last two options, I’d like to add “but it doesn’t matter”. I’ve alienated a couple doctors and made some uncomfortable, but as long as I’m getting better it just doesn’t matter!

November 16, 2007 at 1:17 pm

(2) sk says:

I find it interesting that none of the Googlers are feeling worse!

November 16, 2007 at 3:01 pm

(3) Deborah says:

My experience is that most members of the medical environment don’t care for informed patients. They don’t like to be challenged, don’t care for questions, and often perform proceedures with little thought to consequences. Recently my husband had occasion to be hospitalized. A nurse came in and began to hook him up for IV medication. When I asked what it was and its purpose her response to me was “I don’t know, the doctored ordered it!” My gosh, this is certainly how the wrong foot gets amputated! Further inquiry revealed that it was a dangerous choice for my husband made by a doctor assigned to him in the pinch. The orders were phoned in by a doctoer he had never seen!
I will keep advocating for myself and my family. It is the responsible thing to do. Be relentless in being informed and have no qualms about pursuing answers. Let us not forget one very important fact: Doctors are working for us. We pay them to perform a service, that makes us THEIR EMPLOYERS! They aren’t benevolent Lords serving their kingdom.
Google away!

November 20, 2007 at 6:02 pm

(4) Venting says:

Almost all of the doctors I’ve brought up *anything* having to do with the internet, e Even along the lines of, “I looked up suchandsuch we discussed” – give the “eye roll”, or the glazed over look.

Worse – The ones who think you are crazy because you actually look up whatever Dx they gave you (!), or your symptoms, and then write in your chart that you are a “reader”. A reader! This has been done to me.

I have a mystery thing growing in my head. No one in Radiology would say what it was, they weren’t sure. The doctor I was sent to about discussing the possibility of what this thing was, could put not definite name to it. He said he thought it “might” be thisorthat.

Of course, I’m going to read about what it might be and whatever the doctor discussed as a possibility!

(Still haven’t found out what it is, or what the “plan” for it is. Will be going to a new specialist.)

Similar things have happened with many of my doctors, from a few different areas of expertise. (I have heart, kidney, and thyroid problems – all now diagnosed by really great doctors.)

Even after they’ve done their tests and have absolute proof there is something wrong with me, they still harbor some serious resentment about my looking up whatever they talked about with me! I’m never obnoxious about it, either. I know they are sensitive already, so I certainly wouldn’t add to that by being rude – Dr. Haig said “Susan” was.

Still, after being diagnosed with multiple health problems, somehow I’m psychosomatic or simply crazy because either 1) I have multiple health problems and *that’s just not normal* and/or 2) I’ve used the internet to learn more :/

Articles like the one written by Dr. Haig prove to me, beyond any doubt, that there are doctors which really DO feel this way, even if they deny it.

November 26, 2007 at 12:13 am

(5) Samantha says:

Number 4 response it is ditto here. Only I have BEEN TOLD YOU READ TOO MUCH! Then I am presumed to be hyprochondriac, until I had a syncopy and needed immediate heart surgery; which caused a stroke in hypothalmus. OOPS we missed one test! Oh the reaction was if I would not have intimidated the Drs they would have listened.

December 2, 2007 at 9:30 am

(6) Harleigh says:

If I hadn’t been a “googler” I would have never had the information to provide my doctor with, to eventually convince her to investigate further. I wouldn’t have been able to confidently tell her she was wrong in insisting “I was perfectly healthy”. THis knowledge gave me the strength not to back down when the doctors did not take me seriously for insisting on an antibodies test for Hashimotos. Without “googling” I would have spent years of frustration like most women do trying to get a diagnoses.
Thank God the Internet has provided me with the information I needed to get the treatment that has changed my life, and given me the knowledge to educate other family members with the same disease. Doctors may know a median of symptoms and ranges but know one knows the their own bodies better than themselves. No, without googling I’d still be that crazy woman trying to get out of bed, so I really don’t give a damn what doctors think about someone who keeps themselves informed.