Invisible
As a newly opened clinic, I have the privilege of talking to many prospective patients who are looking for a new doc. I really enjoy it actually because in my former work experience at the “big box” primary care practices, I never got to talk to patients ahead of time so new patients often didn’t know anything about me or I about them.
In these conversations, something has surfaced that is disconcerting. I consistently hear stories about patients being judged or treated poorly in their former primary care clinics. Patients ask me, “Will you be open-minded about me, my family, and my conditions?” “Will you believe me when I have concerns or symptoms that don’t fit into your known medical framework?” “Will you still care for me if I don’t agree to do exactly what you think I should do?” The fact that they are asking this tells me they were dismissed, not believed, or scolded for having doubts about treatment plans or diagnoses. Many simply never went back to that doctor or clinic, and they have avoided the medical system for a long time.
These are the patients who have become invisible to healthcare. It is quite frankly a huge miss on the part of primary care and shameful to the medical community that we don’t have time or space to figure out how to better care for so many patients. These stories and the frustration and loneliness of having to navigate the health system alone breaks my heart. I know doctors are overworked, I know ambiguous symptoms are hard for everyone; patients and physicians alike to unravel and tackle. I know that sometimes, there aren’t answers because even with the massive amount of medical knowledge and literature we have, we still are just scratching the surface on what is known about the individual body and mind. 100 years from know we will look back on the theories and treatments of today and think, “How silly we were!” So there really is not room for judgement. There is a way for doctors and patients to work together in the unknown and have grace for each other. We can still try to find solutions, be honest about what we know and what we don’t, and weigh together the risks and benefits of the options in front of us.
What is also exciting about these conversations is that patients who are calling DPC practices with these stories of invisibility are also saying, “I don’t want another doctor like the one I had.” And they don’t have to!
#DPC
