You can develop potentially serious health conditions or illnesses. Good doctors develop excellent treatment plans for their patients, and you may get lots of information about tests, treatments and drugs you may need. But there is a possible problem in how you understand what the doctors and nurses tell you.
In an excellent study http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1204410 J. Weeks and coauthors evaluated over 1100 patients with serious diagnoses of cancer. Between 69% and 81% of the patients did not understand the expected outcomes of their treatment. Surprisingly, although misunderstanding was higher among non-white patients, it was also higher in patients who felt they had excellent communication with their doctors, the opposite of what I expected.
The very high frequency of misunderstandings about expectations means you may not understand the anticipated outcomes of your illness and its treatment. Here are my tips:
For more information, see Chapter 7 Communicating with Your Doctor in my book “Surviving American Medicine”.
Do you understand, are you happy with what you’re told, or are you still concerned?ommunicating with Your Doctor in my bookommunicating with Your Doctor in my book Surviving American Medicine.