Medicine and families

[leopanther]

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As doctors, do you feel responsible for the health of your family members? How much do you keep track of/intervene on what their doctors are doing and do you ever feel guilty about missing something?

 

[Neuronix]

No. Never and not at all.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

No. Never and not at all.

Yup. I try as hard as I can to stay completely out of it. However if my immediate family had a medical condition within my domain of knowledge/practice, I imagine this would be a lot harder (e.g. if a family member had a specific cancer type there are certain surgeons/oncologists I would adamantly refer them to).

 

[BlondeDocteur]

I definitely do, not in terms of active management or anything but I keep tabs. My family has about a zillion people in medicine though so we all step on each others' toes.

 

[shan564]

My extended family has a handful of doctors in it, and every time anybody in the family has a medical problem, every doctor in the family is somehow notified and asked for an opinion. This is more true if it's something that's related to my specialty. It's also complicated by the fact that the other doctors in the family all work in other countries (mostly Pakistan), so they often ask me something like "how do they handle this problem in America?" That puts me at somewhat higher pressure to give advice, since the Pakistani medical system is focused more on treating things like malaria and tuberculosis and gunshot wounds, and not as much on things like sleep apnea, hypo/hyperthyroidism, etc. In those cases, I usually ask enough questions to ensure that my relative is being treated by somebody who is appropriately qualified, and then I'll usually give that doctor the benefit of the doubt whenever possible (i.e. the doctor providing inappropriate treatment is probably less likely than the possibility that my relative is making a mistake in relaying information to me).

If people aren't specifically asking for my advice, I usually won't go out of my way to get inovlved, unless I notice an overt problem and my relative isn't recognizing the significance of it. For instance, med noncompliance or procrastinating instead of making a doctor's appointment, both of which are often caused by underappreciation of the potential seriousness of the problem, etc. Like a relative with a long history of mild-mod asthma who now has a lot of risk factors for CHF, but is dismissing his SOB as just asthma even though he's not wheezing. Or somebody who isn't using CPAP because they think that sleep apnea is "just a sleep problem" and don't recognize the importance of pulmonary hypertension, etc.

 

[primadonna22274]

I am absolutely hands-off with my family and medicine--the exception being when my sisters need a quick consult on their kiddos via FaceTime: "what do you think of this rash?", "Oli Bear fell and bumped his head, do you think I should take him to the ER or urgent care?"...that kind of thing.
I don't intervene in my husband's health at all. He rarely takes my advice and it's just an exercise in frustration. He did quit smoking and gave up anything with high fructose corn syrup...I consider those pretty big wins. I've given up on reforming the hot dogs, 2-3 pickles, 5-6 pepperoncini and handful of olives a day though. I'll bet if he cut the salt in half he wouldn't even need lisinopril.The man will never die--he'll be pickled!

 

[shiftingmirage]

If someone calls me up asking about something, I'll do my best to help them out. I don't offer advice if it is not requested.