cover image When Your Doctor Doesn't Know Best: Medical Mistakes That Even the Best Doctors Make--And How to Protect Yourself

When Your Doctor Doesn't Know Best: Medical Mistakes That Even the Best Doctors Make--And How to Protect Yourself

Richard M. Podell. Simon & Schuster, $23 (415pp) ISBN 978-0-671-87112-3

Even physicians can make mistakes. And alas, points out Podell (Doctor, Why Am I So Tired?), a clinical professor of family medicine at New Jersey's Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, medical mistakes will continue to occur. Yet patients can reduce the likelihood that medical mistakes will endanger them. Using realistic scenarios-the physician who neglects to ask patients specific questions about their health history or avoids asking potentially embarrassing questions, or patients who do not volunteer information about their health or ask enough questions-Podell shows the genesis of some common kinds of medical errors. Compounding such problems, he says, is a health care system that has become so complex and depersonalized that it offers increasing leeway for medical mistakes. The best way patients can protect themselves? In his well-paced presentation, Podell emphasizes the importance of taking leadership in your health care whenever you suspect a problem with the treatment you're receiving-even if you can't put a finger on it. To that end, he suggests questions that should be asked of one's health care provider-and recommends what to do if you disagree. He notes that only in this way can a patient become an effective partner with a doctor. Also included are a chapter on making the health care system work for you, explaining how to get the best care, whether a patient has a fee-for-service insurance policy or makes use of health maintenance organizations, individual practice associations or clinics. (Dec.)