Oh, not a literal "black mark," but medical records are full of doctors' subjective impressions of patients' personalities and "compliance" (which means "not questioning" and "getting better promptly" as much as it does "following instructions"). Now, sometimes they're spot-on, but often there are underlying issues (medical or psychosocial) that the doctors don't spend enough time to be able to identify/diagnose; and very often, if a doctor can't find a diagnosis to explain a patient's symptoms, or if a diagnosed condition is refractory to treatment, the doctor will implicitly or explicitly blame the patient.
Obviously, doctors who do this are disproportionately represented when patients fire their doctors.
But then, when the patient goes to a new doctor, if the medical records get transferred (which they should, so the new doctor has a complete history and doesn't have to repeat tests, etc.), the new doctor is "infected" by the first doctor's opinion of the patient.
I used to represent disability claimants, so reading sick people's medical records is what I did all day long. It was an education in more ways than one.
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11-06-2009, 11:22 AM #15
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Last edited by OakLeaf; 11-06-2009 at 11:25 AM.
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