Is it common for doctors to dissuade you from getting a second opinion?

No, and I would run from any doctor who did.

If they are a shady asshole, it’s probably common.

Always get a second or even a third opinion. Doctors these days receive too much $$$ for pushing bad pharmaceuticals.

Only if they have a God complex. Never trust a doctor who actively tries to steer you away from a second opinion, because the chances of them having your best interests at heart are low.

I would immediately become suspicious, especially if this doctor is recommending something that would cost a lot of money, with or without health insurance.

I’ve never heard of that happening.

I’ve never had a doctor try to stop me from getting a second opinion (I did it 3 times). They were very helpful in getting that done.

No but I had a Dr that had a bad attitude about it. We were incompatible and had different goals. I fired him. Quite happy with my decision and have sense found a better Dr.

Common enough.

Not in my personal experience. Both times I might have wanted one, the doctors have suggested it themselves.

I live in a relatively small community and I distrust the establishment. If I wanted to seek a second opinion, I probably wouldn’t inform my primary physician…I’d just do it. And the second opinion would likely come from a doctor in a metropolitan area if I was able: easily 1½ hours away.

I would want all my of my opinions to be independent of each other if it was a serious problem.

I don’t think so. I would not ask the doctor about it. I would just do it. It saved me a heart surgery.

If the doctor is trying to do an unnecessary procedure they wouldn’t want you to get a second opinion. If he has a God complex they wouldn’t like it (mentioned above). If they want to be the one to do even a necessary procedure they don’t want you to go somewhere else. They often hesitate to refer to specialists or to recommend a second opinion, because they want the money.

Just ask trailsillustrated about the reluctance of many dentists to refer to a specialist. It’s awful.

I’ve known one doctor who wouldn’t. He said wanting a second opinion was a vote of no confidence. He wasn’t ever doctor.

Obviously it isn’t common. Why would a doctor not want you to get a second opinion?

@Dutchess_III Read my answer two above.

I have to say I think it’s fairly rare.

I think it used to be fairly common place. Not that they would necessarily try to talk you out of it, but act put out, disappointed, etc. I remember suggesting another opinion when I was a kid, and you’d thought I looked at the doctor and said, “I think you’re a quack.”

Late in her life my grandmother was seeing a doctor that had widely been known as a quack for years – his career by then had devolved into “company doctor’ for local factories – and she would not consider being so disloyal as to get a second opinion.

The size of your community and the average age and income could have a lot of bearing on whether second opinions are encouraged or discouraged. IMO

The low income people that I know the well never question anything the doctor tells them, and it infuriates me. The 20-something boy that lives next to the auction was having gastric attacks. They ruled out a number of things, including gall bladder. As things progressed, and they couldn’t pinpoint the problem or make progress otherwise, they took his gall bladder out! Currently he ripped his kneecap off just by turning while holding a heavy part in a factory, and the company doctor dragged his feet six weeks authorizing surgery. To my knowledge he’s done nothing but blindly follow where he’s led.

I went to medical school and you shouldn’t blindly trust your doctor. They are just people and make mistakes like everyone else. Some are good, some are bad. You can get into medical school without having any common sense and unfortunately, you need that to be a good doctor.

For the most part I’m pretty sure most welcome it. For something tricky and/or complex they often consult their colleagues. I would imagine it probably feels a bit insulting though when, for example they make a very simple diagnosis and get treated like they’re an idiot. You get a lot of patients these days who read some webpages, come to their appointment declaring that they have some exotic disease and think the MD is an idiot when she tells them “no, it’s just bronchitis. I know this because you haven’t traveled to Mongolia or drank yaks blood which is the only way to get that disease you found on the internet.”

@gorillapaws It’s unfortinate how many idiots there are. It’s quite stunning too.

Like the GP who diagnosed my relatives plantars warts as a yeast infection.

The doctors who told me it was impossible that I had an infection when I did.

The doctor who prescribed my father two drugs together that are black box warnings, contraindicated, for each other.

The doctor who prescribed my mom a drug that is contraindicated for a drug that she takes regularly.

The Doctor who wanted to do surgery on me to cut away my clitoris; thank God I got two more opinions and additionally went to an oncologist for that.

The doctor who gave my father medication for a procedure that my dad specifically told him the last time he had that med he didn’t feel well and would prefer another med. My dad’s heart rate when down to the 30’s and they had to take him over to the hospital side of the medical complex.

The dentist who took a young relative’s of mine wisdom teeth, and she developed an infection in one space, very serious and significant symptoms, and when she went back the first time he let his nurse evaluate her (ilegal) and she was given an antibiotic, and it didn’t get better, and then finally the dentist gave her a different antibiotic, and a girlfriend of mine said her BIL who works in the ER said they all too often see dental emergencies, because dentists do procedures they shouldn’t and undermedicate infections. Her extraction should have been done by an oral surgeon. She still has numbness on one side of her jaw. I hope to God she doesn’t live the rest of her life, from age 19, with a numb feeling in her face, because of an idiot dentist who didn’t refer her to a soecialist and she didn’t know any better, she’s a young girl, and her mom didn’t know either.

Or, the dentist who told my husband he needed an expensive gum cleaning, which was total bullshit, it’s a big racket with the dentists.

That’s just in my family, and that’s not everything that has happened in my family. Of course this is all over many years, but some of the mistakes are elementary and inexcusable.

Then there was my girlfriend who was having severe appendicitis pain (she thought) and went to her doctor on 4 separate occasions over a year or two, and he dismissed it, told her it wasn’t her appendix, and then finally had a severe attack out of town and the ER diagnosed it as appendicitis and finally she had her appendix out and never had the pain again.

All the doctors who thought hormone replacement was wonderful for older women and know we know it increases some cancer rates. A doctor decided my grandmother should take HRT when she was in her 70’s and had an extremely easy, no complaints, menopause. She took those drugs for a couple of weeks and threw them in garbage. They were prescribed for nothing! She said they gave her ovary pain. She lived to be a few weeks short of 90 years old. The attitude of some doctors that some drugs only have an upside and no downside is frustrating. Like the statins, now under some more scrutiny for causing increased incidents of diabetes, and we already know the possible muscle and kidney trouble, and now I understand they are especially questioning those drugs for women.

Let’s talk about women. For the first time in history prescribing information is different for men than women on a drug. Ambien recently had the dose changed, because women have significant side effects from basically being overdosed. They had the studies for years, but the scientists dismissed the information as being unimportant, because women have large hormonal shifts through the month and so they figured the studies weren’t valid. Can you believe it?! I personally have been saying I believe women are constantly overmedicated, because they weigh less than men, and if you prescribe the same dose to both sexes regularly, the women must be overdosed more often than men. I know my petite girlfriends complain about side effects more than other people I know, even things like OTC ibuprofen doses.

I could go on. See people like the person @ibstubro described don’t think doctors screw up, because they don’t know any better or they get extremely lucky.

@JLeslie “The Doctor who wanted to do surgery on me to cut away my clitoris…” Pardon my language, but I think it’s entirely appropriate here – what the fuck?!

@DrasticDreamer I have had vula pain since my mid twenties, I won’t go into that whole story, but I will say luckily it is significantly better for years now. About 5 years ago I was having a lot of pain again, it centered a lot around my clit. I would examine the area now and then when it hurt very badly, and it looked to me like the tissue was changing, there were some white areas on the tissue. I made an appointment, and had to see a different doctor in the office, because my doctor was out of town. The other doctor examined me and decided I needed to have the area removed, and probably some surrounding tissue, and there was a fear of possible cancer. It would be under general anesthesia, real deal surgery, After the appointment I went to the counter to check out, and the woman asked when I wanted to schedule the surgery (it’s on the paper that you hand into her) and I told her I wasn’t scheduling it. She looked at me like I was crazy, said something about the doctor saying I needed surgery, and I told her no, and had her make me an appointment with my regular doctor.

In the mean time I looked up more info on vulvar cancer and clitoral surgery, and there is an extremely high oercentage of people who have permanent oain after surgery like that, not to mention the obvious that they would be removing a part of me that is very important for sexual pleasure.

I went to the appointment with my doctor and she siggested what I had been thinking before I even said anything. To do a test for HPV and damaged cells like a PAP, and if that came back positive there would be reason for more concern, and to watch the area.

I decided to go to my GYN who I trusted very much when I lived in another state. I traveled to see him and he said, “I don’t know, but I certainly am not going to remove that sensitive an area, if it needs to be done it should be done by someone who does it all the time.” thank God for him. He referred me to a vulvar cancer expert a few hours from my home at Vanderbilt. Vulvar cancer is very rare, so it isn’t like every city has someone who has lots of experience. That doctor, the oncologist, examined me, and said absolutely not cancer. He didn’t see any reason to biopsy the area. He felt very confident if the HPV test was negative that it was accurate.

Fuck that first doctor willing to butcher me. No way he does that sort of surgery regularly. Impossible. He is an OB, most of his work is likely delivering babies and doing PAP smears and breast exams. It would have been a butcher job. My clit is very small, sort of an inny, very neat and compact, and no room for error if you were to remove something. There is bascially nothing to remove without hitting very sensitive areas. Thank God for all the idiot doctors before him that made me distrust doctors enough to not just follow what was recommended. I guess there is a silver lining for some of my suffering.

@JLeslie I can’t believe that. I’m also really glad that you didn’t simply listen to him. Sorry you had to go through that, but thank you for sharing.

Surgeons always want to do surgery. Remember that.

A friend of mine’s son had an accident and an orthopedic surgeon recommended a surgery to repair his back or shoulder I don’t remember. His son was already an adult when this happened. Anyway, his father said let’s get a second opinion. The second doctor recommended the surgery too, but during the conversation my friend thought to ask what is the rule for neededing this surgery. There was some sort of rule that if the space is more then 1 inch (I’m making up the measurment, because I can’t remember the number) then it needs surgery. His kids problem was 1 inch, basically borderline. Then my friend asked if they don’t do the surgery and it doesn’t get better can they do the surgery later with the likelihood of the same results as if they do it now. The answer: yes. So, they chose to wait and see how it healed on it’s own, and it healed fine.

Joe Scarborough on TV, former congressman, had a back injury where he was told to get back surgery, but then another doctor (I think it was at Cleveland Clinic? Not sure) told him it would be better to let it heal on its own. It takes about three months. The surgery might give faster relief right now, but more likely for long term problems. He went with the wait and see recommendation, which would have been difficult for most people with normal jobs, especially people who work jobs that are very physical. He healed up completely, no lingering problems.

Places like Mayo and Johns Hopkins, the best of the best, pay their doctors a salary. They don’t get more money for doing surgery. Although, in teaching hospitals you still need to watch out for doctors who want to do surgery to learn and practice.

@gorillapaws

Then you’ll get the people like my grandmother who’ll go to the doctor then completely disregard everything the doctor tells them because they don’t like what they hear.

@Darth_Algar That’s the problem with being burned so many times, eventually, you run the risk of not listening to a doctor when you should and you can harm yourself or worse. It’s something I grapple with myself.

@JLeslie

Being burned? Hardly. The woman never did take any doctor’s advice (or anybody else’s for that matter). She was a foolish, stubborn woman who would not hear anything she didn’t want to hear.

Going to 3 different doctors and at least one ER trip for back pain. All telling me it was just a pulled muscle and I was fine. One Sunday, the day before my husband was to leave town for a week, we went to the ER. They poo poo’ed me, sent me home. Husband got back from his trip a week later, took one look at me and took me to a different hospital. That hospital took an x-ray and threw me on an ambulance to Wichita. My right lung was 80% full of shit. I had pneumonia, and it had been coming on for weeks. I almost died because everyone else was treating me like I was a nutty hypochondriac.

@Dutchess_III Didn’t they listen to you breathe? With a stethoscope? I guess not, because they would have heard the pneumonia.

@JLeslie Actually, not always. There are places that the stethoscope can miss. My daughter had pneumonia and they didn’t catch it with a stethoscope. They had to take an x-ray to find it.

@everyone Thanks for all of your input. We didn’t end up going with this doctor mostly because of his whole attitude towards a second opinion . It didn’t sit right with me. Another red flag was that he asked how much the second doctor was charging. Considering that we hadn’t asked about costs, it seemed rather distasteful and unprofessional for him to ask.

I don’t remember it @JLeslie, so I don’t know what they did. Doctors around here just randomly kill people.
One lady went to the doctor I used to go to (who blew me off when I went in complaining of back pain.) She called to make an appointment for chest pains, and they put her off until Monday. Doc didn’t want to work Friday afternoon. They didn’t suggest she go to the ER, either. She died that night.

I think you made the right decision @fluthernutter. Unprofessional and a bit insulting to you. Poo poo head.

@Dutchess_III It’s not funny, but it did make me LOL.

@fluthermutter I have to ask my sister about that. It’s hard for me to believe it wouldn’t be heard, but I really don’t know.

Yeah, at 80% blocked you’d think they’d hear something.

I think so. In most cases I don’t even think they need an X-ray. I’m pretty sure pneumonia sounds a certain way. If it was a minor case maybe they would miss it? I don’t know. I’m texting my sister.

My bosses daughter worked at the hospital that finally X-rayed me. Apparently I became a star there because of how much fluid was in my lung. Doctor was showing all the interns and the nurses. Can you imagine the “Oh shit!” moment when he first laid eyes on the film?! I’m just glad I’m alive.

I know two people who died from walking pneumonia. One was just in his 20’s.

Scary.

The guy in his twenties died within a couple of days of finally going to the doctor, or it might have been the ER. I don’t remember. They diagnosed him, he just was too far gone I guess.

My sister said almost always they can tell just by listening.

I came close, I know.

Kudos @fluthernutter. I’m certain you made the right decision.
No matter what he thinks, or how much he charges, the doctor is still your employee.

Maybe the doctor has other motivations, there are several sites you can check

Well, no, get rid of him!
The point is: you will always find at least two opinions on a medical topic, for example (as I just did some research on this because my mother suffers from it) facet syndrome. You will find infos from those who make money out of it http://www.joimax.com/us/patients/facet_syndrome.php and people who experienced such a surgery. Some will say it was worth it and their situation improved, others won’t. So how to tell who is right? Does the one who makes the money have to be wrong and lying? Of course not. Might he? Yes. And there will be research about it: some scientifical studies will find a surgery statistically useful, others won’t.
Given this, a doctor who is oh so sure that he is right and does not even want you to ask questions or look left and right is probably not a good doctor. However, a doctor who has been working as a specialist might be able to tell you from his experience what he thinks. He will not make you ignore other opinions but tell you why he is confident he is right and who can back up his opinion with both knowledge and experience.