How to Avoid Becoming a Learning Experience for a Brilliant Doctor

If you are looking for the best doctor for you when you have a life-threatening medical condition, chances are you don't want to use some kind of "doctors near me" app or Internet search. You probably want your doctor to refer you to the very best practitioner that your insurance will pay for. But how do you determine which doctor is "best?"

Here are some suggestions:

• Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for patient abuses. Check the news stories about the doctor and hospital you are considering. If there is a public story of some appalling incident of patient mistreatment in the department where you are seeking an expert, something like an assault on a patient, an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient, a high rate of medical failures that isn't due to taking the most challenging cases, run, walk, or wheel your chair in the opposite direction. Sure, this kind of evaluation isn't "fair," but it is your life you are protecting.
• Insist on a doctor whose eminent skill is tempered by a modicum of humility and a sense of humor. Medical training in the United States is a lot like serving in the military. Deviation from the norm is not tolerated without spectacular results. However, if the doctor tells you "of course I can help you, I'm brilliant" or something to that effect at the beginning of your doctor-patient relationship, or threatens you with termination if you do not show appreciation for their medical skill or you dare to get a second opinion, let them terminate you. You need someone else. A doctor who tells you what the risks are and helps you make an informed decision is what you need.
• Beware religious zealotry. Readers outside the United States may have a little trouble with this idea, but there are doctors who consider their practice medicine to be entirely subservient to their religious (typically Christian) faith. It's one thing to let patients know they are being prayed for. It's another to limit the treatment of patients to what the doctor believes are their divinely ordained life purposes. If your doctor won't give you Viagra until you are married, or tells you that your problem is that your lifestyle or diet or exercise routine or professional choice is not congruent with his (more usually his) or her holy book, you probably want to bless them and move along.

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• Most importantly, don't seek out a novel medical treatment when a conventional medical treatment will do. This is especially important when dealing with interventional cardiologists. My doctor assured me that he had never lost a patient (something didn't ring true even while he was making the claim), and sure enough, three weeks later I had had to have two more surgeries and then I went into a cardiac arrest as a direct result of his putting the wrong kind of stent in the wrong artery while using the wrong anticoagulant. I'm not to this day sure it wasn't intentional and the other doctor interfered with the desired result; after all, surely he wouldn't have made a mistake that resulted in my being the first patient he ever lost. If your doctor tells you he or she never makes errors, flee for your life! Medicine isn't magical. Don't aim for the sure thing. Cooperate with the honest and kind doctor who makes time for you and shares the very best of their medical skill.