When you schedule an appointment with your doctor, you expect them to help diagnose the cause of your symptoms and come up with a treatment or solution to relieve you of them. For the most part, that is what happens.
However, there are cases where a person’s doctor can make mistakes – and pretty major ones at that. For example, they can misdiagnose a potentially life-threatening illness, or they could prescribe medication that causes severe side effects or affects pre-existing conditions.
In such an example, the issues can be so severe that a patient might consult with a medical malpractice lawyer to discredit the doctor concerned and pursue a compensation claim.
If you suspect your doctor might not be very good at their job, the following telltale signs will prove your suspicions right:
1. Your Doctor Appears to Know Everything
It should come as no surprise that the field of medicine is highly complex. There isn’t a doctor on the planet that can truthfully say they know and understand every disease or illness and how best to treat them.
If your doctor claims to know everything there is to know about even the rarest of conditions, they are likely lying to you and trying to mask their incompetence with a superiority complex. A good doctor will simply tell you they aren’t sure and research your symptoms.
2. Your Doctor Is Too Rigorous With Their Tests
Have you ever noticed that whenever you see your doctor, they always order a series of complex diagnostic tests to find out what’s wrong with you? Yet, you only have simple problems like muscle pain that virtually any competent doctor could quickly diagnose?
The most common reason why some doctors are so eager to run a battery of complex tests on their patients is simple: money. It’s a way for a doctor to get extra money from a patient’s insurance company.
In some countries with a state-funded health service like the United Kingdom, it’s impossible to order any tests without full justification due to regulatory and financial restrictions.
3. Your Doctor Refuses to Investigate Symptoms
On the other side of the spectrum, some doctors may appear blunt or stubborn and offer a simple explanation (or none at all) for their diagnosis of a complicated problem. You might return at a later stage presenting the same symptoms, and your doctor still does nothing.
In those cases, your doctor isn’t doing a good job because they refuse to admit their original diagnosis might be wrong. As you can imagine, that has the potential to lead to very serious consequences.
4. Your Doctor Isn’t Listening to You
Lastly, one of the biggest bugbears that patients have of their doctors is when those medical professionals ask the right questions but mostly don’t listen properly to your responses.
For example, a good doctor can tell when a patient is hesitant or nervous about answering specific questions. Instead of asking further questions to confirm a diagnosis, they just go with the eventual answers without questioning their validity.
What other signs are there that shows your doctor isn’t good at their job? Let me know in the comments below!
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