Once upon a time, I was hospitalized for surgery on a
\nbroken wrist. In the last few months, I’ve had a
\ncolonoscopy and a mammogram. I’m guessing my experience
\nof feeling like my personhood was stripped the moment I
\nput on the hospital gown is not unique to me.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, I was “just a patient.”<\/p>\n
A similar thing happened my first day in medical
\nschool. One day, I was an adult who had accomplished
\nall sorts of things, had meaningful experience, skills
\nand talents. The next day, I was a lowly first year
\nstudent, who “knew nothing.”<\/p>\n
A colleague at the annual Naturopathic Convention a
\ncouple of weeks ago shared what he had found one of the
\nmost valuable pearls from his medical education: that
\nthe standard, traditional model of medicine, at least
\nhere in the US, is an “adult-child” model.<\/p>\n
In that model, the doctor is the adult and the patient
\nis the child. The doctor is the “all knowing” adult who
\ntells the patient–viewed as a child who is incapable
\nof understanding the complexities of his or her own
\nbody, of medical language, and of procedures–what to
\ndo. <\/p>\n
Patient questions and challenges are treated exactly as
\nif the patient really were a young child unworthy of
\nrespect or being taken seriously–with impatience and
\nannoyance, as if any attempt by the patient to behave
\nas an adult is laughable, and an intrusion on the
\ndoctor’s time.<\/p>\n
The patient usually feels powerless. Is it any wonder
\nso many people don’t like hospitals?<\/p>\n
An intermediate model is the “adult-adolescent” model.
\nHere, the patient is viewed as if he or she has some
\nability to understand, but is still not trusted to know
\nor act in his or her own best interest. The doctor
\nstill–supposedly–knows what’s best for the patient. <\/p>\n
But instead of coercing without question, the doctor in
\nthis model takes the role of scaring, scolding,
\nnagging, belittling the patient’s choices and values if
\nthey do not match what the doctor believes is best.<\/p>\n
The patient usually feels some urge to rebel. Is it any
\nwonder so many people are averse to doctors?<\/p>\n
The most unusual model is the “adult-adult” model.
\nHere, the patient is viewed as an equal, intelligent
\nhuman being, whose values and choices are worthy of
\nfull respect. The doctor’s role is to provide
\ninformation, encouragement, and support for the patient
\nin discovering and using his or her own inner guidance
\nto apply the available information according to his or
\nher own values.<\/p>\n
The patient usually feels empowered, and takes
\nownership of his or her own health.<\/p>\n
It’s taken me a long time to understand the ways in
\nwhich I have unconsciously, subtly and sometimes
\nblatantly behaved according to the first two models.
\nIt’s not surprising, given this usually unquestioned
\nand unspoken aspect of medical training–both as a
\npatient and as a doctor.<\/p>\n
When you think about your own experience and
\nexpectations of doctors, which model is most familiar
\nto you?<\/p>\n
Which is most helpful to you?<\/p>\n
What I’ve found when I’m the one who is experiencing
\nhealth challenges is that in acute situations, I do
\nwant to be taken care of and told what to do, as if I
\nwere a child. For about five minutes (or as long as
\nsurgery takes.)<\/p>\n
Then, I notice how uncomfortable I feel, and how out of
\nsynch this feels to my belief that I really am the
\ncreator of my own reality, that I am very much involved
\nin the manifestations of my body, that my body is not
\njust a machine I can turn over to some expert who can
\n“fix” me.<\/p>\n
It takes practice to keep this awareness at the
\nforefront of my consciousness. It’s easy to fall prey
\nto the influence of advertising and culture saying that
\nthe solution to my problems lies outside of myself.
\nThat I must seek some medicine, some therapy, some
\npowerful person who can fix me. <\/p>\n
In other words, I am not enough.<\/p>\n
Does this happen to you?<\/p>\n
It’s tempting and economically profitable to give
\npeople what they think they need–tests, medicine,
\nprocedures. (And tempting as the patient, to seek and
\nsettle for this.)<\/p>\n
As a doc, it’s much more challenging to stick to the
\nreal work of doctor-as-teacher. That work is to persist
\nin seeing the patient as the magnificent creator he or
\nshe is, and to assist him or her in awakening and
\nemploying his or her own intuition, inner guidance, and
\nknowing of his or her true power.<\/p>\n
As a person desiring greater health, it’s much more
\nchallenging to stick to doing the real work of shifting
\nyour consciousness and vibration so that vibrant health
\nis the natural result, instead of trying to hand off
\nyour power to someone else.<\/p>\n
It takes courage and practice to truly believe that you
\nare enough, and to find health care practitioners who
\nwill mirror this, and not your illness, back to you.<\/p>\n
Because we doctors are trained and licensed to find and
\nsolve problems, and most of our patients expect us to
\ntake that role, even those of us who prefer the
\nempowerment approach to medicine sometimes need to be
\nreminded.<\/p>\n
Ask your doctor for this. You might find support you
\ndidn’t know was possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once upon a time, I was hospitalized for surgery on a broken wrist. In the last few months, I’ve had a colonoscopy and a mammogram. I’m guessing my experience of feeling like my personhood was stripped the moment I put on the hospital gown is not unique to me. Suddenly, I was “just a patient.”… Continue reading Ask Your Doctor for This<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-healing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}