Second opinion
-
- June
- 20
A few years ago, an elderly friend told me she was very upset about her husband’s health.
He had a serious heart condition, she said, and he was going to have surgery at a hospital in Westchester. “Did you go for a second opinion?” I asked. She shook her head. “Oh, no,’’ she said. “The doctor is a very nice man.”
I suggested that a second opinion wasn’t insulting to the doctor. But she insisted that she and her husband loved their physician.
And the surgery went fine.
But that conversation stuck in my mind. It seems my elderly friend was not alone in refusing to seek a second opinion. I’ve since met other people who also feel strange questioning their doctor’s authority  especially if they believe it may adversely affect the doctor-patient relationship.
Yet I don’t believe most doctors take second opinions personally. A very well respected eye surgeon in Manhattan actually has a brochure in his waiting room that explains how to go about getting a second opinion. And I suspect many of his patients are grateful for that.
But I do wonder: If you take your parents to the doctor  and suggest they get a second opinion on a diagnosis  how do your parents react? Are they resistant to the idea?
If so, do you ever insist, especially if it’s a complicated diagnosis?
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 2:35 pm by Linda Lombroso.
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Baby boomer Linda Lombroso was born in Queens and grew up in Port Washington. She began her journalism career at New York Magazine and Rolling Stone, and came back to the field after spending 10 years as a stay-at-home mother. Linda joined The Journal News in 1997 and has been a Life & Style writer since 2000. She has three children.
i guess it depends on the next question I ask the doc. hey doc any alternatives? how long will i have without it?
depending on the answer i may let him know i’ll think about
and triple check with a few others …
with my mom, since we rbought her up here she didnt have a doctor. so we had to question every diagnosis etc that they gave.