MANY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

LACK COMMUNICATION SKILLS

          Some of my favorite people are members of the medical profession.   I know that I am alive today because of the knowledge and care of a large number of  doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel.

          However, I am sad to report that medical professionals do not always communicate with one another, and sometimes vital information is not even shared with their staffs.

          For years I have requested that all lab reports and recommendations of various medical specialists be sent to my family doctor.  My goal was to have all of my medical information flowing into one central office.  From there, any specialist treating me could access whatever background information that was needed.

          With the advent of computers, it would seem that this would be a simple procedure.  Just zap the pertinent information via email to whatever doctor was doing what doctors do -- examine, prescribe, operate, console, etc.  Unfortunately, in too many instances vital information is kept secreted away in some doctor’s computer.

          Examples of communication failures abound.  After a week of injecting a blood thinner twice a day into my stomach, I was ready for  a fairly common eyelid surgery.  As I was being wheeled into the operating room, the doctor appeared and canceled the operation.  Seems that eye doctors had only recently learned that using that blood thinner could in some rare cases, cause blindness.  So he canceled the operation.

          My question was why did we come right down to the wire, and why was this information not sent out to the entire medical profession?  To top it off, a member of his staff called me the next day to see how I was doing post op.  Obviously, they weren’t even communicating internally.

          This week I had a follow-up visit with the surgeon who had removed my cancerous lower intestine.  Following the usual “how are you doing?” questions, he said he routinely performed a colonoscopy in the first year after surgery.  He asked me when was I operated on.  I told him I sometimes had trouble remembering what I did last week.  Actually, it had been two years since the operation. 

          His next question was “Did you see an oncologist and did you have radiation treatment?”  I told him that the “cancer” doctor told me that it would be five years or longer before I had to be concerned, and “no, I did not have any radiation treatment.”.

          I have come to a number of conclusions.  First, even though I had made this appointment several weeks ago, he apparently had not read my file.  Or, even worse, none of the oncologist’s report had been sent to him. 

          I have asked my family doctor to forward all pertinent information in my file to the surgeon since I will be meeting with him again in the next week or so.  The surgeon should have this information in order to make wise future decisions concerning my health.

          I don’t know what it will take to alert the medical profession about this major, life dealing problem of failing to communicate.  Perhaps the AMA will undertake to conduct seminars for doctors on the new computer medical information programs currently available.   I sure hope so.

           One concluding thought.  I totally admire and love all of the doctors who have treated me, and I will also admire and love any future doctors.  I am not in the business of upsetting those who help me; I just want them to be better informed.