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Communication is good medicine.(5-MINUTE CONSULT)(Essay)
I OFTEN THINK ABOUT the doctor who took care of me from my teenage years until my late 20s, a kind man who always treated me as if I were the most important person in the world. Even when I was a medical student and sure I had every disease I was studying, he took all of my complaints seriously and listened carefully to every word. And even though he almost never ordered any tests or prescribed medicines, I always left his office feeling dramatically better.
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The healing power of communication has largely been lost in many doctor-patient relationships. And we've forgotten that many times, nonmedical problems in our lives can lead to or exacerbate physical symptoms and that nonurgent symptoms can dissipate with time.
I've been a specialist in infectious diseases. You can bet that by the time patients seek advice from someone like me, they have already seen a number of doctors. A while back, one of my patients came to me with a stack of medical records.
She was 46 and had been suffering from fatigue for more than a year. By the end of each workday, she was so exhausted that she could barely function. She had occasional headaches and a mild sore throat that came and went, but she denied having other symptoms.
What I learned
She saw her internist regularly and all her blood tests were normal. She underwent multiple office-rays and even had CT scans of her brain and abdomen.
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