It’s disheartening how typical this is:
I Want an ANTIBIOTIC!!!@#@$@$!~
A very demanding 40 year old woman came in with 1 day of dry cough. She claimed not to smoke and had no medical problems. Vital signs normal, lungs clear, afebrile (no fever). I was essentially forced first to do a chest x-ray – but it was my hope that if it was negative, she would not demand an antibiotic. Unfortunately, when I told her is was fine and that she likely had a mild bronchitis – no antibiotic necessary, she looked at me like I was from Mars. After calmly telling her all the reasons for not needing it, she still wanted it – and it was either get into a big argument and likely have her write a letter of complaint to the patient advocate, or just give her the damn prescription. So, I gave her the instructions (and wrote it on the script too) to not take it unless she was not any better in 1 week from the onset of symptoms. I think she felt like she won.
I know a dozen people including my mother, with this attitude. And what really frosts me is how people sometimes “save” the tail end of the antibiotic prescription once they start to feel better, so that next time they get sick, they can avoid going to the doctor. They just have no
idea what they’re doing or how that is harmful. What made this woman think she knew better than the doctor? What made her think she was better qualified to determine what, if any, prescription medicine was appropriate? Hubris, personified.
The fact is, people’s expectations are all wrong. Any monkey could scrawl out a prescription for an antibiotic. That’s not the reason doctors spend tens of thousands of dollars and over a decade preparing for their career. And if you stop to think about it, that’s not why you go. What you’re really paying for, when you see the doctor, is his expertise. You’re paying for access to specialized knowledge. You’re paying for good advice.
This is not to say that patients should meekly accept, and never question, a doctor’s advice. Don’t enter a doctor’s exam room and turn off your brain. But do recall the real reason you went. You went to see the expert, not to be the expert. And if you forget that, and get what you think you wanted, you just might end up sicker than when you started – like the demanding woman did.
