10 Things You Need To Know Before You See The Doctor: A Physician's Advice From More Than 40 Years Of Practicing Medicine

287 Pages·2004·5.89 MB·English

by  Sheldon

10 things you
need to know
before you see
the doctor
A P ’ A
HYSICIAN S DVICE
M 40 Y
FROM ORE THAN EARS
P M
OF RACTICING EDICINE
S L P
ILVER AKE UBLISHING

L A , CA (cid:1) A , WA
OS NGELES BERDEEN
10 Things You Need to Know Before You See
the Doctor
A Physician’s Advice from More than 40 Years of
Practicing Medicine
First edition, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Sheldon Lipshutz, M.D.
Silver Lake Publishing
111 East Wishkah Street
Aberdeen, WA 98520
.
Box 29460
Los Angeles, California 90029
For a list of other publications or for more information from Silver Lake
Publishing, please call 1.360.532.5758.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transcribed in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise) without the prior written
permission of Silver Lake Publishing.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: Pending
Sheldon Lipshutz, M.D.
10 Things You Need to Know Before You See the Doctor
A Physician’s Advice from More than 40 Years of Practicing Medicine
Includes index.
Pages: 286
ISBN: 1-56343-781-3
Printed in the United States of America.
(cid:1)
To my wife Rita, my love and my best friend always without whose help
this book could never have been written.
And to my children—Laurie, Mark and Keri, and their spouses Ronald,
Amy and Howard, and my nine grandchildren Jason, Danny, Josh, Noah,
Max, Michayla, Lexie, Jack and Sammy, whom I dedicate this book.
A special thanks to editor Kristin Loberg and publisher James
Walsh of Silver Lake Publishing for bringing this book to fruition.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: “HELP, I NEED A DOCTOR!” 7
ONE: BEING A PATIENT IS SOMETHING YOU LEARN 11
TWO: THE DOCTOR ISN’T ALWAYS RIGHT 33
THREE: PAIN IS A SIGNAL 53
FOR YOU TO TAKE INVENTORY
FOUR: SURGERY IS ALWAYS SCARY BUT 77
PREPARING IS EASIER
THAN YOU THINK
FIVE: HEALTH PLANS AND DOCTORS ARE 109
CHOICES YOU MAKE
SIX: DIAGNOSING REQUIRES TEAMWORK— 141
YOU AND YOUR DOCTOR
SEVEN: EVERY PILL, EVERY SWALLOW COUNTS 157
EIGHT: WOMEN HAVE A LOT TO WORRY ABOUT 175
NINE: CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY NEED EXTRA 191
ATTENTION
10 Things You Need to Know…
TEN: KNOW YOURSELF AND YOUR BODY 211
CONCLUSION: “DOCTOR, BEFORE WE BEGIN…” 229
APPENDIX A 241
APPENDIX B 247
APPENDIX C 267
APPENDIX D 275
APPENDIX E 279
INDEX 281
Introduction: “Help, I Need a Doctor!”
INTRODUCTION
“Help, I Need a Doctor!”
I’ve been a physician for more than 44 years. During that time,
I’ve seen many changes occur in the practice of medicine—most
of them for the good. But I’ve also seen some things that have
frightened me both as a doctor and a patient. In sharing with you
my experiences, I don’t intend to frighten, but rather to tell the
truth. If you understand the truth about what goes on in medi-
cine, you’ll put yourself first and get the proper medical care you
deserve. You’ll be able to find the right doctor and ask the right
questions…and you won’t be so intimidated by visiting the doctor
and managing the course of your health care. No matter what you
do for a living or how much biology you don’t know—whether
you’re a lawyer, accountant or stay-at-home parent—you can and
must play an important part in your health care.
Malpractice and Legal Issues
Throughout this book, I will use the term malpractice. Some-
times I mean this in the legal sense (and I’ll point those times out);
more often, I’ll mean this in the broader, professional sense. We
live in very turbulent times with a great deal of litigation. Because
7
10 Things You Need to Know…
of this, many physicians fear the possibility of someone filing a
lawsuit against them.
Rising malpractice insurance has also made it difficult for doc-
tors to rest easy when it comes to legal matters. But malpractice
isn’t always what you think it means; it’s not only about lawsuits
and seeking monetary rewards for medical procedures gone wrong.
To the contrary, it encompasses a broader range of issues, much
of it not legal. This book will lay out the meaning of malpractice
and show how its prevalence affects the quality of treatment you
receive. When I talk about malpractice, I am talking about any
kind of bad treatment you might receive—regardless of the legal
implications.
It’s important to realize that medicine is not an exact science.
It is an art that draws from science. Every human body is differ-
ent. To learn, doctors make mistakes and learn from them. Dis-
cussing these mistakes at conferences often leads to litigation. If
the story gets out today, an attorney will be consulted tomorrow.
For this very reason, autopsies are way down—again, for the fear
that something found will lead to litigation.
The use of autopsy has declined steeply over the past 50
years. Currently, autopsies are performed in only about 6
percent of non-forensic hospital deaths, and even less
among deaths in the community. However, discrepancies
between clinical diagnosis in the living and true cause of
death or postmortem diagnosis exist in as many as 30 per-
cent of cases. Thus, the autopsy remains unique and valu-
able as a tool for establishing the cause of death.
8
Introduction: “Help, I Need a Doctor!”
Because of this, the American Medical Association continues
to urge the federal government to provide for payment, under its
programs, for autopsies as a valuable element in determining the
quality of medical care and enhancing the quality of medical edu-
cation.
In the following chapters I will explain the various things you
can do to keep from falling victim to what I call the cover-up. This
cover-up refers to all that goes on behind the scenes in doctors’
offices, hospitals and laboratories to cover up mistakes. Cover-
ups occur because medicine has become such a fragile and expen-
sive component to our society. So much is at stake—from the
business end to the consumer end.
This is not a criticism of your physician or medical provider;
it’s simply a statement of fact. You should have respect for the
advice and decisions of physicians. However, you must be certain
that these are the proper decisions and proper avenues of treat-
ment. I hope that this book will give you some insight into the
problems that are facing medicine today.
When I was a medical student, two things made an impression
on me. The first was a quote from one of my teachers:
Don’t forget that you will always be a student. You must keep up
with your reading because medicine is an always-changing field. The
notes you take today will be completely worthless in a few years
because new methods will be devised to take their place. You are
always going to be a student.
The medical community must keep up with the changes oc-
curring in medicine. Unfortunately, not everyone does. That’s part
of the cover-up. Laws have been passed in an attempt to force
9