Questions to Ask When You Meet Your Doctor

By: Jill Porterfield

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 16 mins

Publisher's summary

I don't like to admit it or face it very often but I am getting older. Now that I am getting older, there are people I am meeting more often than I ever have before--doctors. Oh, I met them before when I was younger. My Mom took me to the doctor and I took my son there at different times but now it is me who is there more often. And one thing I am noticing more often is that my doctors are very pleasant but uninformative unless I slow them down and ask questions. As they say, time is money and there is a lot of money in the waiting room staring at their watch wondering how far behind schedule the doctor is running and how long they will be kept waiting. So when I started to ask my doctors questions, I noticed a few things-- they were impatient with me as though they did not like to have their judgment questioned and that I needed to be informed in order to make decisions about my treatment in order to be seen as a human being, not a slab of meat to be seen and dismissed. It started many years ago as my husband I were dealing with issues around infertility (his medical problem, not mine) and he met with different urologists who offered conflicting advice about treatment. This was a complicated issue for us because we met late in life and wanted to have children. One urologist recommended surgery to increase his sperm count; another recommended surgery to harvest immature sperm from his testicles and then we do invitro. We didn't know what to ask to help us make a decision. So he went back to the each urologist and asked them about the recommendation of the other before seeking the opinion of a third as a tie breaker who recommended the less invasive treatment (the second one). And from that and from spending time with my Dad as he was at the later stages in life came the idea for this guide. I hope you never have to use it but, if you do, I hope you find it helpful.