Physician Communications and the Golden Rule

This page exists to help everybody become smarter medical consumers. My intention is to help everyone understand how an ideal Doctor/Patient relationship should work. This will help everyone become more comfortable with their doctors, or at least understand them better, and even may help the doctors to improve their communication with patients. In many cases, the doctor patient relationship is very poor. I aim to rectify that as much as possible. And, in those cases where the relationship is bad, I will help people to recognize the bad relationship and either help people repair it, or end it for a new and better doctor.

My basic philosophy as a physician and as a human being is to live by the Golden Rule. This means that every patient that comes to my office will be treated in a way that I would want to be treated. In other words, you will be treated like family. This is important to me. Personally, I believe that my central values as a human being are well served by treating people well. I am not mean, short, or curt to my patients. I am empathetic. Maybe too much empathy. Maybe even to a fault. Many times, when a patient tells me that they are in pain, and I see it in their face, I begin to feel the pain myself. This is probably too much empathy. But it is me, and it is the way that I am made. I recognize that. And I think it motivates me to help them do whatever is necessary to get past the pain and to correct whatever problem exists. 

As a Doctor, I will communicate with you in the most effective manner that I can. Frequently I will test if my communication is good by asking questions. Many doctors don't do that. It is very important that if the doctor speaks to you in a way that you don't understand, then you must speak up. You must ask the questions that tell the doctor that you don't understand. This is a very basic problem in medicine all over the world. It is well known that patients don't understand the complicated words, especially if they are Latin or Greek words. Most surgical procedures are named in the Greek. The field of medical science is so old, and so bound up with ancient traditions, that no one has ever translated many of the medical words to English. The medical doctors just keep on chugging along with their very very old words that no one understands anymore. 

For instance lets look at the Gyn operations: Lets look at the "womb" of women. In Latin it is called the "Uterus". Removing it is not called a "Uterectomy" or even a "Wombectomy". Removing the Uterus is called a "Hysterectomy". What the heck is a "Hyster"? It comes from the ancient Greek word "Hystera" for the Womb. Even so, most people know what a Hysterectomy is. Other cases are not so easy. 

At the bottom of the Womb is the Cervix. Cervix is Latin. But removing it is called a Trachellectomy, from the Greek. And what about the ovaries? Removing them is called "Oophorectomy". Very few people in America know the Greek word for ovaries. But yet a Gynecologist might order a "Total Hysterectomy and Bilateral Oophorectomy".  The Doctor might even get the patient to sign the consent form. If the patient doesn't already know what an Ooph is, then they just might lose their ovaries without intending to do so. Hopefully those cases are rare. But there is still the everlasting confusion regarding what the heck a "complete hysterectomy" really is. What most people really think it is, it is not. What most doctors think it is, is not what people expect it to be. My next post will be to explain the difference. I am telling you all right now, it is really really important to get on the same page to eliminate these confusing problems. It is very rare for a women to tell me she had a "complete hysterectomy" and to be technically correct in the medical sense. 

Thanks, sincerely, 

Dr John Marcus MD
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Ridgewood, NJ