Let's face it--For a very long time, the medical establishment was run by men, for men, and with men in mind as "the average patient". Now the enormous wall has been breached, women are as likely to be doctors as men are to be nurses. It should be very easy then to get a male doctor to understand how a woman's body works, what can go wrong with it, and how an illness might affect her, right?
BZZZZZZ! Oh sorry! You missed the $64,000 question!
It is almost impossible to get an accurate diagnosis of lupus from the first doctor one sees, never mind on the first visit! Most women don't go to the doctor with a specific complaint until the problem becomes severe enough to interfere with their daily activities. The reasons for this may be due to the demands of a hectic schedule, the old habit of the woman being the caretaker and not the one who needs help, or the simple, old, and completely wrong belief that "It's just one of those things!"
It is not needful that women "learn to deal with" chronic pain, fatigue, hair loss and the other "vague" symptoms that lupus can present with, but sadly, we are often told this by our health care providers. Symptoms that can range from annoying to severly impairing can be dismissed easily with a "Well, that's what happens as we get older, isn't it?"
Many times, we don't even have the time to discuss our symptoms with our physicians, largely due to HMOs and insurance companies' interference with doctors. Doctors can be told they have a minimum quota of patients, or even have a limit on the minutes that they are expected to spend with each patient. This leads to cursory examinations, and almost no time for discussion between patient and physician.
However, speaking up for our rights can be more detrimental than taking this kind of neglect. Often, patients who have a list of symptoms to talk to the doctor about (and insist on discussing them all with the doctor), who don't allow themselves to be rushed, and who ask questions and offer opinions about their healthcare often get labeled "professional patients" and are not taken seriously by the health care team.
 |
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Karyn Moran Holton's Lupus topic, please visit the Discussions page.