Changing or Choosing Your Doctor
Changing or Choosing Your Doctor
You’ve been injured a while, but for one reason or another you
have to change doctors. Perhaps you’ve moved, your doctor has
retired, you're in a new health plan and you need to change doctors,
or you're not convinced that your doctor is doing the best for
you. You need a doctor who has had some history with or interest
in SCI or related conditions.
The Quarterback!
Beverly Kievman in her book, For Better or For Worse: A Couple’s
Guide to Dealing with Chronic Illness suggests that your primary
doctor can be your quarterback. Depending on your level of injury,
severity, and complications, you may need to see a variety of
specialists and therapists over your lifetime. Therefore, the
quarterback of your health care team is critical.
How to Select Your Top Draft Choice:
As an SCI survivor, you need a doctor who helps you take care
of yourself, listens to you, learns about spinal cord injuries
and long term consequences of these injuries, and is concerned
about your needs and concerns. Kievman suggests that you assess
your needs so that you know exactly what you are looking for.
- What does the doctor know about SCI? Does the doctor have experience
with SCI or related conditions such as spina bifida and post-polio
syndrome?
- Is your doctor related to a hospital or rehab center that treats
SCI or related traumas?
- Does your doctor work with specialists who have had a history
with SCI?
- What is your doctor’s attitude about your role in your health
care? Is he or she willing to receive input from you?
- Is your doctor willing to take time for an interview before you
make your choice?
- Is your doctor willing to work with other health care providers
in partnership with you?
- Is your doctor’s office accessible and is the staff trained to
lift you onto exam tables?
Not every doctor will meet all your criteria. Ultimately, you
will need to decide which questions are most important or which
are negotiable.
Your Scouting Report:
Because your relationship with your doctor will be long-term and
possibly frequent, it is important that you feel comfortable and
trust your doctor and his or her associates. If you are in a rural
area or in a health care plan that offers few alternatives, you
need to do some homework. Who are the specialists, where is the
nearest hospital, and how quickly can you be transported or admitted
if an emergency occurs?
Take time to know your doctor and specialists. Are they team players?
Make it known you want to hire the best help possible.
Changing Quarterbacks:
If you already have a doctor but need to make a change, what do
you do? Some people think they must stay with their present doctor,
but people change doctors all the time. Your goal is to find someone
you can trust, work with, and develop a team relationship with.
As Kievman suggests, a combination of knowledge, caring spirit,
professionalism, and emotional “rightness” will provide you with
a “quarterback” you and others can work with.
The Long-term Game Plan:
You are looking for someone you can work with over the long haul.
Does he or she talk with you and/or your caregivers as equals?
Will the doctor explain all tests and procedures in advance? Do
you feel that he or she genuinely cares about you and your caregiver
or family? Is he or she aware that you and other health care persons
are part of a team?
You need to find someone who “fits” you, your needs, and your
injury. He or she needs to be aware of what might be going on
with you and your family and be sensitive to those concerns. In
his book, Healing Words, Larry Dossey says that you should ask
yourself a crucial question: "Does my doctor make me feel better
or worse when I’m around him or her?”
Teamwork:
The doctor-patient relationship is a key to making things work,
because it is not just the doctor who is going to do the healing.
The doctor, you, your family, and other health care professionals
all contribute to your long-term health care needs. You are the
best judge of how you feel and what is going on in your body,
so, you must actively participate in the process. You cannot be
a passive patient who shares little, or who is not heard by your
doctor. Your caregiver, spouse, or other family members must also
be active partners in your health care.
Remember the Game Plan:
Resources:
For more information read:
For Better or For Worse: A Couple’s Guide to Dealing with Chronic
Illness by Beverly Kievman with Susie Blackmun. Chicago: Contemporary
Books, 1989.
Building a New Dream: A Family Guide to Coping with Chronic Illness by Janet Maurer. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
1989.
Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine by Larry Dossey, M.D. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers,
1993.
This is one of more than 20 educational brochures developed by
Craig Hospital while it was a federally-funded Rehabilitation
Research & Training Center on Aging with Spinal Cord Injury. The
opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the funding
agency, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research of the US Department of Education.
For a hard copy of a METS brochure, click on your selection above
and hit the "print" button on your browser. If you'd like to ask for one directly from Craig Hospital, you can contact us by telephone at 303-789-8202, or you can e-mail us at HealthResources@craighospital.org.
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