Do you feel that your doctor actually cares about you?

No mine just cares about the money! I had rectal bleeding once and they passed it off as something minor. When I returned about 6–8 months later and mentioned it had stopped the same doctor then tried to send me to a specialist. Naturally I changed doctors!

Besides regular STD tests (which are faceless and change, regardless), I don’t think I’ve ever “had a doctor.”

Hmm…

My GP is great. His bed side manner is atrocious and he can’t do small talk to save his life, but he knows exactly what he’s doing, medically speaking.

Absolutely. My doctor is so awesome. This last visit I had in June, we sat down together & revised some of my medications to work better together. He takes the time to talk to me. He’ll sit on his stool, prop his back up to the wall & just talk. He’s Vietnamese & he looks to be about 20! His sense of humor is wonderful. We do as much laughing & joking as anything. I almost look forward to going in there. Most of the nurses at our hospital go to him. He was recommended to us years ago by our niece, who’s a nurse. I can’t say enough good things about him. I trust him fully. Even my husband likes him, & that’s saying a lot!

To ask if your doctor “cares about you” is different then asking if he “cares about your health concerns”.

He HAS to care about your health concerns. That’s his job. Whether you’ve gone to him for years or just went for the first time.

As far as caring about you, ex., he calls you up a few days after your visit to see how you are feeling (even though you don’t have something life threatening), I’d be uncomfortable if he did. The normal process is him telling me “call me in a few days to let me know how you’re doing”.

Some people expect their doctor to “mother” them. Don’t. That’s NOT what they’re there for. You’ll be disappointed.

I’m not sure if my doctor cares about me but I love going to see him. He is awesome in that the method he uses to get me into good habits are highly effective. Rather than prescribe drugs needlessly, he would talk to me about changes I can make to my lifestyle to help naturally improve my health and then he starts talking about the hazards down the road should I not choose to heed his advice. Some scary stuff.

Yes. If I didn’t I would start looking for a new doctor.

Yes i do.

I even wonder if a doctor actually cared about me the way, say, a relative cared about me, would that possibly get in the way of good medical care? Would he be apprehensive about doing certain procedures he might normally do if he were objective?

@Quagmire: Nah, I’m not asking about whether or not your doctors “mother” you…my mom’s a nurse and even she doesn’t “mother” me, so I wouldn’t have gone there, anyway. ;)

I think my mother’s doctor cares about her. I see another doctor in the same practice, I tend to go to whoever is rotating in, just because it’s harder to get an appointment with the main doctor.
I like my doctor, I know he cares and he tries to make it semi-personal. I went to him recently, and he was talking about his wife giving birth at the hospital I may give birth at…and we share the same OB, so it was nice to hear a doctor goes to the same doctor as me!
My doctors office is always very prompt with prescriptions, and they give a lot of leeway. Also, when I didn’t have health insurance, they’d still see me and work around the big costs of testing as best as possible. They are very compassionate, which I like. I’ve been going to this practice for at least 10 years.

My current one does, absolutely. It took a couple to find one.

The few I had at a teaching hospital couldn’t quite convince me.

If he cares about getting paid he’d better.
Actually, I do. At least it seems that way. We’ve been with him for few years and really like him.

When I wore my “I am the Grammarian about Whom Your Mother Warned Your” T shirt to my last appointment, my internist (whom I love) ordered one for his writer wife.

I do come prepared with three questions written out in order of importance; that keeps us from wandering off somewhere.

I also do my own triage when I set up the app’t in terms of dying, dire, fairly concerned, can wait a week or so.

(Thanks to Andrew’s mother.)

Yes, I believe my doctor cares about me. She asks questions and pays attention to the answers. She has a very kind way about her. I can’t describe it very well, but she’s just a very sincere person. She’s also very honest, so I appreciate that.

I don’t think my doctor cared much about me. Maybe because he was so old. He graduated from medical school the same year my mother was born! (1953) Anyways, he seemed to be somewhat disinterested when describing various symptoms. I went through a period of drastic weight loss and gain due to stress (lost 15 lbs. in a week or something) and he just shrugged it off. He just retired a month or two ago, so I haven’t met the doctor who’s taken over his practice.

Maybe it’s just my area of NYC, but it’s hard to find a doctor who seems like he/she “cares.” I miss my old pediatrician. He was the nicest guy ever. He seemed to care about me much more than my most recent doctor, but that might be because he watched me grow up.

My ophthalmologist who I had as a child yes, I do think he cared, especially since I saw him at least once a year for the first 18 years of my life, and he’s probably the only person I ever felt truly understood the limitations of my vision.

@gailcalled – that shirt made me laugh very hard! Thanks for sharing that.

@Bri_L : LInk doesn’t work but the shirt is easy to find on line. My Oncologist, who is also married to a writer, is ordering one for his wife, also.

Apparently, at home, both my Internest and my Oncologist argue about English usage regularly. They are both in favor of 4000 IU of vitamin D3 daily. What’s not to like?

Generally I would say NO—bolded in big letters. I do have two doctors, specialists, who I would say care.

That’s a big no for me.

My dentist cares so much. It’s very touching. My dentist, orthodontist, and oral surgeon are like my personal Justice League or something. I was born with hypodontia, which has resulted in years and years of work, and lots of collaboration among the 3 doctors. A lot of the work that needed to be done couldn’t begin until I was finished growing, so for that time gap it was mostly my orthodontist just getting everything in place. Making things look as nice as possible. He never made anything personal. He saw things very professionally and objectively, just getting done what he needed to and doing the best job he could. I always trusted he knew what he was doing and that I was in good hands. It was his job to prepare me for the other two doctors. I’ve been going to that damn office for 10 years now, I’m practically an addition to the staff.

My dentist, unlike the ortho, has bombarded me with encouragement, support, endearment, and reassurance for as long as I can remember. “They don’t care about you like I do…! I always make sure you’re happy!” (referring to the other two doctors). Kisses on the forehead were not uncommon on my visits to him (kind of creepy?). But nah, he’s such a sweetheart. His son had the same problem as me, so he sees me as a special case. He’s mostly working on the cosmetic aspect of it all, so the bulk of his work is done last (bonding, crowns, bleaching, etc).

My surgeon, she’s a fucking whack job. I love her, too. She’s just so out there that sometimes I wonder why I trust her to prod around me while I’m unconscious. But she’s great, she is extremely talented at what she does, never any problems. She makes the ordeals so much simpler and lighter, and makes me laugh all the time. She deals with people like me every day, so I’m not “special” in her office, and I don’t feel out of place. I only started going to her this year, cause that’s when I was finally ready for the procedures.

So do all my doctors “personally” care? No. But they certainly do their best to make everything as quick and painless as possible for me (though ‘quick’ was really not an option in my case), and I appreciate their efforts immensely. So now, several years of braces, jaw bone grafting, a bridge, and 4 implants later, It’s finally going to be all done come this December. I’m currently in the 5 month implant healing stage. Once that’s done, my dentist will do his cosmetic-thang, and then I’ll never have to deal with any of this shit again :D FUCK YEAH.

@le_inferno – Lurve for “my own personal Justice League”! hheheh

@le_inferno – I, too, have a wonderful dentist. He and his wife are the only people in the office, they see one patient at a time and do what they can to keep patient costs down. He cares about his patients and they all know it. If he retires before all my teeth fall out of my head, I’m going to have a breakdown.

I guess , considering he’s only seen me once. lol He is a moviestar. FANTASTIC bedside manner.