How to Talk to Your Doctor

Discussing a new diagnosis

Once you have articulated your symptoms to your doctor, gone through the necessary tests and your doctor has come to a conclusion and diagnosed you with a condition that requires treatment, what do you do? Obviously an educated patient is an empowered patient, so you will want to ask the appropriate questions to find out as much as you can about your treatment options and, with your doctor's help, decide which treatment is best for you.

Every treatment has trade-offs. The best treatment for you may be different from the best treatment for your friend or neighbor. We all have individual needs, and different things are important to each of us. If you play a part in making decisions about your treatment, you are likely to recover quicker than if you do not.

It is even more important to take part in making decisions when doctors do not know which treatment is best for you. Doctors should base their treatment decisions on what the research tells them. If your doctor knows what the research says about how to treat a condition and uses this information to make decisions about treatment, then he or she is practicing evidence-based medicine. This is a good way to practice medicine because it means your doctor is using evidence from medical studies that have looked at what happens to many thousands of people.


Key points to remember when choosing treatments

• Check out all your choices.
  
• 
  
• Make sure you understand the risks and benefits of treatments or of doing nothing.
  
• 
  
• Make sure you understand how the risks and benefits will affect you specifically.
  
• 
  
• Make sure you have enough information to make a choice.
  

You and your doctor should talk about your options for treatment and make a decision together about the best treatment for you. This process of working together is often called shared decision making. Whenever possible, you should work with your doctor to decide on the best treatment for you. You should ask these questions before deciding on any treatment:

• How involved do I want to be in making decisions about treatment?
  
• 
  
• What will happen if I do nothing?
  
• 
  
• What are my choices for treatment?
  
• 
  
• What are the benefits and harms of each treatment?
  
• 
  
• How do the benefits and harms balance out for me?
  
• 
  
• Do I know enough to make a choice?
  
• 
  
• How can I work through my choices?