How to Talk With Your Doctor

by Hoffman, Ronald L.

• ISBN13: 9781591202899
• ISBN10: 1591202892
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-15
• Publisher: Basic Health Pubns

Summary

More waiting rooms are filled these days with highly informed medical consumers seeking to partner with their doctors. They want to explore all promising treatments, both mainstream and alternative. To physicians, these patients seem needy and demanding. They expect a lot of attention, but are all too quick to question authority and battle doctors for control of their medical treatment. To patients, though, physicians can come off as stodgy, even arrogant. Many patients neglect to mention the alternative treatments they are using for fear of disapproval. Some walk away entirely from mainstream medicine.The unfortunate pattern in each case is the same: miscommunication and missed opportunities. Patients do not receive the best care available to them, and doctor-patient relationships fall far short of the caring and mutually satisfying exchanges they could be.How to Talk with Your Doctoris a book for patients and doctors alike. It arms patients with the tools and knowledge they need to communicate better with physicians about using the best high-tech and alternative treatments. At the same time, it helps doctors balance their skepticism of complementary and alternative approaches with open-mindedness.Part One looks at how doctors are trained, what practicing medicine is really like, and why so many physicians still resist nonconventional approaches. It also examines how growing interest in alternative treatments is changing the practice of medicine and how it might change even further-for the better. Part Two offers a blueprint for patients and doctors for maintaining optimal health and dealing with chronic illness. It then explores complementary and conventional options for preventing and treating specific conditions. Separate resource sections for patients and doctors list products, websites, and organizations that can help promote better dialogue and medical collaboration so patients receive the most effective therapies medicine has to offer.

Author Biography

Ronald Hoffman, M.D., is medical director of the Hoffman Center, one of New York City's preeminent complementary care facilities. From 2000 to 2003, he served as president of the American College for the Advancement of Medicine. He is the author of several books as well as the host of the radio program, Health Talk. Sidney Stevens is a veteran health writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous national magazines, newspapers, webzines, and literary journals.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Preface to the Second Edition	p. ix
Preface to the First Edition	p. xi
What's Wrong-and Right-with Medicine
Why Doctors Act the Way They Do	p. 3
Medicine and Health Care in Flux	p. 17
Creating a New Vision of Medical Practice	p. 33
Making Knowledgeable Decisions, Getting the Care You Want
Getting a Real Physical Exam	p. 55
What to Do When You're Chronically Ill	p. 77
Heart Disease	p. 95
Cancer	p. 117
Arthritic Diseases	p. 133
Cognitive Problems	p. 153
Dealing with Diseases That aren't Diseases	p. 173
Preparing for Surgery and Recovery	p. 193
Last Words: Where We are, Where We're Headed	p. 213
Resources for Patients	p. 217
Resources for Physicians	p. 235
Notes	p. 239
Index	p. 249
About the Authors	p. 257
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