Bedside manner - part 1

Before I became a doctor, there were two experiences I had with physicians that reminded me how important bedside manner is. The first was when I was a student in college and I had severe headache, which made me go to the Emergency Room. I had a suspicion that it was caused by an odd way I was sitting in my dorm room when studying, in which my neck was pressed up aganst a cement wall for long periods. As weird as this sounds, it was actually comfortable because I had a pillow behind my neck. So when the ER doc was taking the history, I told him I thought this might be the reason. The response I got was a nasty, "I'm the doctor here. So let me be the one who figures out what's wrong, ok?" That is called God complex and many doctors have it. When I have patients, I always ask them their opinion on what they think is casuing a certain problem. Sometimes, they provide valuable insights that I would never have considered. Stay tuned tomorrow for part two. Share your bedside manner stories here. Click here for the next post.