Waiting in the emergency room waiting for the floor nurse to take us seriously as my dads blood pressure increases from 150/100 to 180/120 from the normal 120/80, and stop saying its only hypertension. Only his medical background saved his life. He and my mother pushed and pushed until they agree to give him an MRI. They find a tumor over his adrenal gland, pressing on his kidney, the size of an orange. Later, after surgery, the most wonderful infusion nurse is sitting with us talking while we wait for the chemotherapy transfusion to finish for the day. She understands everything we are saying about how things have changed since dad’s diagnosis. Another liver specialist sees us on his day off to make sure we can get the right medication in …show more content…
If Kite had had a more serious problem, she could have suffered long term consequences or worse from the doctor not listening to her fully. Having poor communication can be dangerous for the patient.
Many patients can also get written off as hypochondriacs by doctors, or as simply over reacting. This is especially common with illnesses that the doctor hasn 't seen very often, if at all, the illness is producing unusual side effects in the patient, or caries a stigma with it. Psychological disorders fall prey to stigmatization and many physical diseases can be misdiagnosed as a psychological disorder when not communicated clearly. As Jennifer Brea said in her Ted Talk, “What happens When You Have a Disease
That Doctors Can’t Diagnose”, “Forty-five percent of patients who are eventually diagnosed with a recognized autoimmune disease are initially told they’re hypochondriacs.” This line of thinking doesn’t just happen to people with autoimmune diseases or psychological diseases. Brea gave another example, “A friend from college, whose brain tumor was misdiagnosed for years as anxiety.” Stigmas against some diseases can color a doctors thinking just as much as people without medical