Doctors are skilled at asking questions and pulling vital information out of their patients to ensure accurate diagnoses — at least, most doctors are. Sometimes doctors negligently fail to spend sufficient time with their patients and they don’t ask the questions to fully analyze their patients’ health situations. This can result in serious injuries and death.
To avoid becoming a victim of medical malpractice and doctors’ errors, patients need to take great care when communicating health problems. The following tips can help you in this regard:
Prepare before your doctor’s appointment: It’s easy to get so flustered and nervous when the doctor arrives that you forget to tell him or her the most pressing symptom. Therefore, you should prepare your list of symptoms, questions and concerns ahead of time. This will help you convey all the necessary information to your physician.
Prioritize: Your doctor might not be able to answer every single one of your questions and concerns due to his or her limited amount of time. Therefore, you’ll want to prioritize the most pressing concerns you bring to your doctor first.
Request a follow-up appointment: Because your issues could be considerably in-depth, you don’t want to leave any questions unanswered. Simply request a second appointment in which you can cover the other half of your issues.
Find out if you can communicate in another way: You might be able to access your doctor when you’re not in his or her office via email or a telephone call. Ask him or her which way is best.
Bring a friend to the doctor: Your friend can help you stay calm when the doctor comes into the room. Your friend could also assist you in remembering all of your concerns and serve as your advocate when your health is ailing and you have a difficult time clearly expressing yourself.
These tips will help you communicate your issue effectively with a doctor and reduce the chances of you suffering from a misdiagnosis or a poorly matched treatment protocol. If you’ve made your best efforts to communicate with your physician, and your doctor negligently made errors that caused you serious harm, investigate your legal rights under Pennsylvania medical malpractice law.