Being An Advocate
This is a lesson that for some reason I need to keep relearning.
I remember going to the doctor as a kid. My parents taught be to have absolute faith in the doctor; that the doctor was the expert. My job was to give the doctor as much information as possible, to answer questions honestly, and then to do whatever the doctor told me.
That strategy worked fine when I was a child. As an adult ... not so well. Most of my experiences with the medical profession have been good -- but I've also had some mediocre encounters with doctors that could have been helped by a good dose of assertiveness on my part. Doctors not listening to me; doctors jumping to conclusions and me not trying hard enough to set them straight; not getting second opinions. Fortunately it hasn't mattered too much since I've never been seriously ill.
In a broader sense, I have this fantasy that when I need services, I would like to hire good people who will listen with an open mind, and then work with me on a solution. Sure, I can learn a lot on my own, but in complex cases, such as health, car repair, veterinary issues ... I want an unbiased expert with good communication skills. But in our society, you cannot assume that you will be able to hire such a person.
Such was the case with Autumn and the cat doctor we took her too. The guy looked like a real professional; I'm sure he got good grades in vet school, and knew a hell of a lot about cats ... but I was pretty disappointed in our visit with him. I touched on some of this visit in my previous post, but want to go into a little more detail. For starters, he thought that Autumn's problems were abdominal. And maybe they were, but that really didn't feel right to us. And we spoke up, but we couldn't really swayhim. Don't know what was going on there; maybe he was just focusing on possible causes that he could do something about ... but it seemed like he was taking a very slow (and expensive) route to the truth.
I also felt like he viewed Autumn's condition as a lot less dire than we did. We were fighting against time and money for her life, but it didn't really feel like he saw it that way, that this was just a slightly-less-than-routine visit. And, well, maybe Autumn's physical condition wasn't all that dire -- we'll never know now, although I suspect it was. But, and this might sound mean -- a cat in our house that doesn't use the litter box is not going to last with us long. That's harsh, and I don't like it, but it just the way it is with where we are in our lives right now. I didn't tell that to the vet, but I should have. Not sure if it would have mattered except for me getting chewed out, but I still should have made that clear. But it either could have lit a fire under him, or maybe he could have told us we were overreacting ... the ensuing conversation could have been positive.
Well, I think there's a 90% chance that nothing we could have done short of major-league brain surgery would have mattered to Autumn in the end, but I still have the lingering feeling that we didn't really play things right. Going forward, with our remaining cat, and much much more importantly, with our kids, I need to continually remind myself that I need to monitor the situation and be a strong advocate for my family when necessary, be it with vets, doctors, teachers, or whomever.
A few pointers for myself:
I remember going to the doctor as a kid. My parents taught be to have absolute faith in the doctor; that the doctor was the expert. My job was to give the doctor as much information as possible, to answer questions honestly, and then to do whatever the doctor told me.
That strategy worked fine when I was a child. As an adult ... not so well. Most of my experiences with the medical profession have been good -- but I've also had some mediocre encounters with doctors that could have been helped by a good dose of assertiveness on my part. Doctors not listening to me; doctors jumping to conclusions and me not trying hard enough to set them straight; not getting second opinions. Fortunately it hasn't mattered too much since I've never been seriously ill.
In a broader sense, I have this fantasy that when I need services, I would like to hire good people who will listen with an open mind, and then work with me on a solution. Sure, I can learn a lot on my own, but in complex cases, such as health, car repair, veterinary issues ... I want an unbiased expert with good communication skills. But in our society, you cannot assume that you will be able to hire such a person.
Such was the case with Autumn and the cat doctor we took her too. The guy looked like a real professional; I'm sure he got good grades in vet school, and knew a hell of a lot about cats ... but I was pretty disappointed in our visit with him. I touched on some of this visit in my previous post, but want to go into a little more detail. For starters, he thought that Autumn's problems were abdominal. And maybe they were, but that really didn't feel right to us. And we spoke up, but we couldn't really swayhim. Don't know what was going on there; maybe he was just focusing on possible causes that he could do something about ... but it seemed like he was taking a very slow (and expensive) route to the truth.
I also felt like he viewed Autumn's condition as a lot less dire than we did. We were fighting against time and money for her life, but it didn't really feel like he saw it that way, that this was just a slightly-less-than-routine visit. And, well, maybe Autumn's physical condition wasn't all that dire -- we'll never know now, although I suspect it was. But, and this might sound mean -- a cat in our house that doesn't use the litter box is not going to last with us long. That's harsh, and I don't like it, but it just the way it is with where we are in our lives right now. I didn't tell that to the vet, but I should have. Not sure if it would have mattered except for me getting chewed out, but I still should have made that clear. But it either could have lit a fire under him, or maybe he could have told us we were overreacting ... the ensuing conversation could have been positive.
Well, I think there's a 90% chance that nothing we could have done short of major-league brain surgery would have mattered to Autumn in the end, but I still have the lingering feeling that we didn't really play things right. Going forward, with our remaining cat, and much much more importantly, with our kids, I need to continually remind myself that I need to monitor the situation and be a strong advocate for my family when necessary, be it with vets, doctors, teachers, or whomever.
A few pointers for myself:
- If you find that you have to be a strong advocate with, for example, a doctor, that is probably a good sign to find a different doctor.
- Don't sell your knowledge short. Reflecting on things, it struck me that although this vet knew a hundred times more about cats than I did, in my own way I knew a lot more about Autumn than he did, having spent literally thousands of days with her.
- Don't be afraid to challenge authority, and to raise questions.
- Do your own research when you don't feel satisfied with the official answers. The internet is a great place. I used to worry about things like picking up bad info or the internet turning you into a hypochondriac. Those are certainly risks, but these days I feel good enough about my ability to evaluate information.
posted by Jim at
9:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home