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Medicine & Aggie Answers

By Bill VanBurkleo, D.O.,FAEP 

PRACTICE OF MEDICINE
   You know the practice of medicine is hard sometimes. There are days when little things elude us and the diagnosis just doesn't present itself. Frustrating...There are days when the medicine we prescribe just doesn't work or, for some unknown reason, it causes a rash or makes you even sicker...Frustrating...There are days when patients will not stop smoking, do not know their medicines, will not go into the hospital even though they have pneumonia and can hardly breathe, and there are  days when one should have just stayed home.......Frustrating! I would like to say that I realize that we physicians are not going to cure every one that we see. Most will, however, keep trying or will find some one that can come up with an answer. Sometimes the patient needs to help us a little.  If a medicine makes you sick or you develop a rash, don't just get mad and say, "I'll never see that doctor again".Come in again, give your Doc a call so he or she can change medicines or determine if indeed it is the medicine. We never know if a patient is going to have a reaction until they have the  reaction. It's just something we can't predict. It is also difficult to make a correct diagnosis in an illness with several possibilities after only one visit.  Many times we try a course of treatment and if  it  doesn't appear to be working we reevaluate the treatment. This reevaluation  can not  be  done on the telephone. We need to see the patient. In  the  old days,  the  patients with difficult diagnosis were just placed in  the hospital  to find out what was wrong. That was the easy way. We now try to  keep people out of the hospital if we can. Therefore, it  might require  that your physicians see you more often and they might  have to change  the initial thinking and treatment. The  point is you can  help your physician help you.They don't have all the answers at their  finger tips  and they are not magicians. Re-evaluate your expectations.  If  you cough  all  the time and you are very short of breath and you  have had these symptoms for a long time but you continue to smoke, you might as well resign yourself to the fact that you have a progressive  disease, caused by  your smoking  and that the prognosis is that  it will  get worse especially if you continue to smoke. If you hurt your back but feel like you can't take time off to rest it and properly treat it, then realize that it is going to take twice as long or longer to get well.

     KNOW YOUR MEDICINES
   I can't impress upon you how important it is to know your  medicines. "I  don't know the name but it's a little white pill," can get you very sick and even dead real fast. Some medicines just do not mix and so the names are important. Copy the names, strength, and directions from  your bottles onto a piece of paper and carry it around in your pocketbook or billfolds.
 

03-20-2008 20:16 Bill VanBurkleo Published in Health, Newsletter

This entry was posted on 03-20-2008 20:16. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. This article was favoured 44 time. You can leave a comment. Last update on 05-24-2008 08:12
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