G r a c e

Say a patient comes in with chest pain. First time they’ve ever had chest pain. They say they googled it, and clearly they have cancer now!

…no. That’s the first example.

But say a patient has chest pain, they’ve had chest pain for 10 years, every previous doctor has checked for all the obvious causes, and nothing changes.

That’s a completely different scenario. In the first example, the patient doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The condition is new, their knowledge is limited. That’s why we have doctors. But in the second example, the patient is the expert, and the doctor is the one who’s new to the situation. The patient has done all this before, and is very familiar with the pain (condition, etc.) that they have. The doctor is not the one with 10 years of experience. They need to listen, because the patient actually has something they don’t know to add to the conversation.

These two things are not mutually exclusive, they are not the same scenario, and both doctors and patients (but mostly doctors) need to learn to tell the difference and know when to talk, and when to listen.

“Brave little pig is proud of herself”