christensen@apollo.uucp (Wendy Christensen) (10/09/85)
from (p. chrzanowski @ AT&T Bell Laboratories): > Well, yes, a diagnosis of cancer might be depressing, might even > ruin your whole day, etc.: but so long as my behavior remains > responsible, resposibility for my mental state rests with me, > not with some physician (who may not even have any training > psychology or psychiatry). Should a diagnosis of cancer cause > me to no longer be regarded as a responsible adult ?... This also applies to many conditions other than cancer. There is a subtle, but extremely common perception among both the medical profession and the general public that if there is something wrong with your body, there is automatically something wrong with your mind - you become, in peoples' eyes, a defective entity. This is MOST annoying. As an experiment: next time you are in a restaurant or other public place, watch carefully how waiters, clerks, etc., deal with a person in a wheelchair: they will do almost ANYTHING to avoid speaking to the disabled person directly, even though it is abundantly clear that the person's problem is purely physical. For example, a waiter will ALWAYS ask the disabled person's companion: "What does he/she want?" Or, try this: on your next trip to the shopping mall, walk around with a cane. Observe how differently you are perceived and treated. Many years ago, I went to a physical therapy session and was treated like a mental defective - the nurses and therapists actually baby-talked at me. (I never went back there.) I had similar experiences dealing with the staff in the hospital where I had surgery last year - when I caught various staff members in several mistakes (some of them potentially serious and harmful to me) I was not only not appreciated, but greatly resented. I called one nurse on a particularly stupid mistake she was about to make. She argued with me for several minutes (although she was clearly in the wrong AND SHE KNEW IT). I finally prevailed and she refused to come into my room for the rest of my stay there. The staff is so used to thinking of patients as helpless, defective children that they cannot handle one who continues to act like the intelligent, competent adult that he is "in real life." Patients are supposed to check their intelligence and competence at the hospital door, and deliver themselves completely into the hands of the staff. BIG MISTAKE! DON'T DO IT! Don't let them get by with it. Ask questions. Probe. Complain. Explore. Challenge stupidity and nonsense in whatever "official" form it may appear. If anything looks or sounds fishy, say something. If your doctor treats you like an idiot - or if you catch him lying, concealing facts, or anything else, dump him immediately. I have probably walked out on more doctors than most people will see in a lifetime. Any medical condition, especially a visible disability, causes you to be regarded, by many people who ought to know better, as something less than a "responsible adult." Unfortunately, the medical profession harbors a large number of offenders. w. christensen
marcus@wanginst.UUCP (Bob Marcus) (10/10/85)
>As an experiment: next time you >are in a restaurant or other public place, watch carefully how waiters, >clerks, etc., deal with a person in a wheelchair: they will do almost >ANYTHING to avoid speaking to the disabled person directly, even though it is >abundantly clear that the person's problem is purely physical. For example, >a waiter will ALWAYS ask the disabled person's companion: "What does he/she >want?" In the U.K. there is a radio program for disabled people called "Does He Take Sugar?" It's the best example I know of a program's title making a point and conveying the spirit of the show. -- Bob Marcus marcus@wanginst (Csnet) Wang Institute of Graduate Studies wanginst!marcus (UUCP) Tyng Road, Tyngsboro, MA 01879 (617) 649-9731
wws@ukma.UUCP (Bill Stoll) (10/20/85)
Dear Wendy, Hooray for you! It sounds as though you could be a co-author of the book just published by "The People's Medical Society": "Take This Book to the Hospital With You!" It's people like you who will help solve the medical care crisis in this country. -- cbosgd!ukma!wws(Walt Stoll) YOU Walt Stoll, MD, ABFP Founder & Medical Director ARE MORE Holistic Medical Centre 1412 North Broadway Lexington, Kentucky 40505 THAN YOU THINK (606) 233-4273