How To Make Your Doctor’s Appointment Do More For You

Doctor: “So, how are you today?”
Patient: “Can’t complain; how about you?”

Hopefully your medical appointments don’t start quite like that, but there can be an element of being “along for the ride” when it comes to consultations. They ask questions, we answer, they prescribe something, we thank them.

In principle, the doctor should be able to handle that; ask the right questions, determine the problem, and not need too much from you. After all, they have been trained to deal with an unconscious patient, so the fact you can communicate at all is a bonus.

However, leaving it all to them isn’t really playing the field.

Before the appointment

Research your issue, as best you understand it. Some doctors will be very averse to you telling them about having done this (taking it as an affront to their expertise), but here’s the thing:

You don’t have to tell them.

You just have to understand as much as possible, so that you will be as “up to speed” as possible in the conversation, and not be quickly out of your depth.

Have an agenda, based on the above. Literally, have a little set of bullet-points to remind you what you came in to discuss, so that nothing escapes you in the moment. This should also include:

• If you have additional reasons for a particular concern (e.g. family history of a certain problem), make them known
• If you plan to request any specific tests or treatments, be able to clearly state your reasons for the specific tests or treatments
• If you plan to write off any specific tests or treatments as something to which you will not consent, have your reasons ready—in a way that makes it clear it’s something more than “don’t want it”, for example, “I’ve already decided that this treatment would make a sufficient hit to my quality of life, as to make it not worthwhile for me personally” (or whatever the reason may be for you). It needs to be something they can write on their notes instead of simply “patient refused treatment”.

Compile a record of your symptoms (as appropriate), and any previous tests/treatments (as appropriate), in chronological order. If you take all this with you, perhaps in a nice folder, you will enjoy the following advantages:

• not forgetting anything
• ability to answer questions accurately
• give the (correct) impression you take your health seriously, which means they are more likely to do so also—especially because they will now know that if they fob you off and/or mess something up, you’ll be taking a record of that to your next appointment.

Plan your outfit. No, you don’t have to dress for the red carpet, but you want to satisfy two main conditions:

• Accessibility for examination (for example, if you are going in with a knee pain, maybe don’t wear the tight jeans today; if they’re going to take blood, be either sleeveless or have sleeves that are easily moved out of the way, etc)
• General presentability (it’s a sad fact that doctors are not immune to biases, and will treat people better if they respect them more)

During the appointment

Be friendly; doctors (like most people) will respond much better to that than to grumpiness—even if you have good reason for grumpiness and even if the doctor has been trained to help grumpy patients.

Be confident: when we say “be friendly”, that doesn’t mean to necessarily be so agreeable as to not advocate for yourself. In particular:

• If they explain something and it isn’t clear to you, ask them to clarify
• If you disagree with them about a value judgement, say so. By “a value judgement” here we mean things in the realm of subjectivity. If the doctor says you are prediabetic, then you won’t get much mileage out of arguing otherwise; the numbers have the final say on that one. But if the doctor says “the side effects of the treatment you’re requesting will make it not worthwhile for you” and you have understood the side effects and you still disagree, then your opinion counts for more than theirs—it is your decision to make.
• If they dismiss a concern, ask them to put in writing that they dismissed your concern of X, despite you providing evidence that Y, and it being well-known that Z. Often, rather than doing that, they’ll just fold and actually address your concern instead.

Writer’s example in that last category: I recently made a request for a bone density scan. I expect my bone density is great, because I do all the right things, however, as both of my parents suffered from osteoporosis and assorted resultant crushed bones and the terrible consequences thereof, I a) have reasonable grounds for extra concern, and b) I believe that even if my bone density is fine now, it’s good to establish a baseline so I can know, in 5, 10, 20 years etc, whether there has been any deterioration. Now, happily the doctor I saw agreed with my assessment at first presentation and so I got the referral, but had she not been, I would have said “Could you please put in writing that I asked for a bone density scan, and you refused, on the grounds that [details about what happened with my parents], and that osteoporosis is known to have a strong genetic component is not, in your opinion, any reason to worry?”

Be honest, and/but err on the side of overstating your symptoms rather than understating. For example, if it is about a chronic condition and the doctor asks “are you able to do xyz”, take the question as meaning “are you able to do xyz on your worst days?”. You can clarify that if you like in your answer, but you need to include the information that xyz is something that your condition can and sometimes does impede you from doing.

Leave your embarrassment at the door. To the doctor (unless they are a very unprofessional one), you really are just one more patient with symptoms they have (unless your condition is very rare) seen a thousand times before. If your symptom is embarrassing, it will not faze them and you definitely should not hold back from mentioning it, for example. This goes extra in the case of discussions around sexual health, by the way, in which field the details you’d perhaps rather not share with anybody, are the details they need to adequately treat you.

After the appointment

Follow up on anything that doesn’t happen as promised (e.g. referrals, things ordered, etc), to make sure nothing got lost in a bureacratic error.

Get a second opinion if you’re not satisfied with the first one. Doctors are fallible, and as a matter of professional pride, it’s likely the second doctor will be glad to find something the first doctor missed.

See also: Make Your Negativity Work For You

Take care!