Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa Sanders
Lisa Sanders writes a weekly column about diagnostic stories and is also a technical advisor for the House TV series starring Hugh Laurie.
This is her first book and as the title clearly says, it’s about the art of diagnosing patients.
All the stories about diagnosing patients are very informative and interesting, and some cases are truly mysterious but very satisfyingly solved in the end.
Scarily enough, there are a few horrifying cases where misdiagnoses caused a lot of money, suffering, and in some cases, unnecessary deaths. A lot of times, misdiagnoses happen because the doctors are too busy to actually listen to the patient and diagnose them too quickly. Finding a doctor who will take the time to listen is important because the patients’ testimonies can give crucial clues to their condition.
The scariest thing I gained from reading Sander’s book though, is the knowledge that many doctors are too stubborn and set in their ways to learn from mistakes or to change with new knowledge. Based on this, I feel that it’s important that we educate ourselves about our own health or illnesses instead of passively putting our health and our lives in the hands of other people.
With the internet being as useful as it is and with all the free information sharing online, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t educate ourselves and look for alternatives if we feel what we’re currently doing to medicate ourselves isn’t working.
I’ve always been interested in learning more about natural healthcare, and after reading this book, I’m glad that I decided to educate myself and take control of my own health rather than leaving it to other people.
Of course, in urgent cases and emergencies, there’s often no time to find out what I can do, but at least 9 times out of 10, I can rest easy knowing that there’s something I can do to make it better. I highly recommend reading this book!
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