When we consult with doctors we come away with immediate decisions on whether to follow medical advice or not. There are many reasons why we may follow our doctor's advice.
The first and the best is that we believe and understand our doctor and that our agenda is reasonably close to our doctor's. Other reasons include doing what one is told by a respected professional. This may result in the idea that it was not quite what we were expecting, but we respect and trust the doctor so we will give it a try. Or of course we may just be too frightened to disobey.
The problem is 50% or more of patients do not follow medical advice closely, they are not committed to the plan, most probably because it is the doctor's plan and not theirs.
Recent pieces:Baker, G.'s Fracture of Brittle Disordered Materials: Concrete, Rock;Psychology of Entertainment (Lea's Communication Series) (Routledge;Navarre Bible New Testament - Hardcover (Navarre Bible);The The Not So Wild 1st (first) editon Text Only;Don't Disappear: Part 1
Example. -- A 54 year old man is referred to the Cardiology clinic by his doctor with a letter saying
'This man has developed intermittent chest pain over the last 3/12 that has some cardiac features such as being related to exercise and radiating to his left arm, his resting ECG (EKG) is normal, BP 150/85, and I can't find anything obviously wrong. He smokes 20 a day and is a line worker at the car plant. There is no past history of anything significant.'
The clinic is rushed as usual, but the intern or junior doctor takes his history in more detail and examines him thoroughly. She thinks, like the family doctor, that there may be an element of angina and arranges for him to return for a treadmill test and give him some GTN tablets for under his tongue to take when the pain begins. Later the hospital doctor is surprised to hear that he defaulted from the treadmill test. So why did he default$%:
In this case, the reason was simple. He thought both the family and the hospital doctor were investigating the wrong thing. He went to his family doctor with chest pains, worried that they heralded the onset of oesophageal cancer because his father had presented in the same way. The thought that the pain might be related to his heart had occurred to him, but it did not correspond with his idea of heart pain. He was confused that his doctor did not mention cancer or ask him about his throat, but he was worried that his own doctor really did think it was cancer because he sent him to the hospital. He kept his appointment because he thought the hospital would do tests that would rule out cancer. When he found out that the hospital doctor was just like his own doctor, only interested in his heart, he did not feel committed to the medical plan. He presumed the doctors were not worried about cancer. He was not worried about his heart so he decided to do nothing unless something else developed, in which case he would go back to his own doctor.
ArticleHarley Brown's Eternal Truths for Every Artist Paperback;Introduction to GPS: The Global Positioning System, Second Edition;Black and Blue Magic;An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Private Law: Readings,;Made Possible By: Succeeding with Sponsorship;Fishback, Price V.'s Public Choice Essays in Honor of a Maverick
Take asthma as another example: an article in Chest, a specialist doctor magazine, in 2006 demonstrated that a single question effectively identifies those of us who don't think their asthma is a chronic disease, and therefore don't manage it as one.
"Do you think you have asthma all the time, or only when you are having symptoms$%:"
53% of hospital admissions in this study were of the 'no symptoms, no asthma' belief.