Lending an Ear

I’m going to kick this blog off by talking about an experience I had today at the doctor’s office that will end up focusing a lot on a very important skill necessary for this field: listening. I’m going to start off with a short version of my story and then get into the discussion.

I saw the physician’s assistant (he replaced my regular doctor after he left his practice) because I was having problems with my asthma. It’s been out of control lately and I can’t even walk around the block without gasping for air right now, and that is definitely not normal for me. I’m someone who goes on three hour marathons of playing tennis, so walking is normally a breeze for me when I’m feeling good. Anyway, I told him I’m having symptoms usually 3 or 4 times a day and I keep waking up at night with them. Yes, I have an inhaler and the ability to do aerosol treatments at home and I have been using both, but the medicine doesn’t control the symptoms for more than an hour and a half to two hours. I told him that normally when I have asthma symptoms and albuterol doesn’t work to take care of them, I get put on steroids for 10-14 days. I also told him that since I always have problems with drastic weather changes (like this year has been), I go on a long term controller medication (Advair) until things stay in control for a while. Well, I tried my hardest to persuade him but it didn’t work and I wasted my time going there because he wasn’t willing to do anything to help treat it and told me I’d just have to wait a couple weeks and see how things go then. Needless to say, I came right home and started looking for a new doctor.

Now to the point of this post: Patients know their own bodies the best and if they have a chronic condition, they also know what treatments have worked best for them in the past. Health care professionals need to listen to what their patients tell them. Patients may not have the same amount of knowledge as the person treating them (and in fact, most don’t), but they still bring their own expertise with them, and that is the knowledge of how their body feels and what works and doesn’t work for them.

Healthcare these days is no longer one sided and there’s more and more of a movement for patients to be their own advocates. Gone are the days of patients just blindly following the suggestions of their doctors. If the patient isn’t getting what they need out of their health care, they have every right to find a new professional who will take them seriously and listen to them.

Listening to my patients was one of the first skills I learned when I started my clinical rotations, and it remains the most important and the most difficult skill to practice. It’s easy to get caught up in your workload and forget to take the time to actively listen to your patients; I understand that. However, if you don’t spend time listening, you can miss important clues about what questions to ask next. That in turn can lead to a misguided view of what the patient’s problem is and cause you to treat a condition they don’t have. Meanwhile, the delay in the treatment the patient actually needs could have serious consequences.

For anyone working in the medical field, please remember to listen to your patients and take your time with them. They are people after all, and not just some product on an assembly line for you to inspect and pass along on its way.