Doctors And Medical Professionals On TikTok Discuss How You Can Best Advocate For Your Own Health
“The doctor will call you back in the next few days”—a phrase that instills instant panic deep in my gut.
“The doctor is only in three days a week, and she called out today”—an absolute tragedy that will ruin, at minimum, the next two weeks of my life.
Does this sound dramatic? Well, let’s turn to #medical Tik Tok for some answers from some doctors and professionals in the medical field on how you can best advocate for your own health.
It can be easy to get swept up in all of your doctor’s questions—but what about yours? Dr. Becker is one doctor who made a TikTok video talking about how to prepare for your upcoming appointment.
It’s helpful to break down the cause of your visit, your hopes for treatment, and the doctor’s familiarity with your condition before putting all your eggs in their basket.
Another critical juncture we approach in the doctor’s office is which prescription is right for us. As patients, we have less familiarity with different medicinal brands and the variability of side effects for medicines that treat the same condition.
Dr. Gift Idahosa gives helpful tips in the form of five questions you should ask when your doctor writes you a new prescription:
1. “Ask for the brand and generic names of the medication.”
2. “What is this medication used for, and how is it going to benefit me?”
H_Ko – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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3. “Are there any alternative treatments?”
4. “What are the side effects of this medication? What should I do if I experience any of them?”
5. “When and how should I take the medication?”
It can also be crucial to ask your doctor if you’ve treated anyone with your condition before. This question is especially relevant when you have an uncommon diagnosis.
It’s vital to remember that you are your greatest ally in the doctor’s office. Paying attention to your own body’s signals, keeping track of reactions to different treatment methods, and communicating these observations to your doctor will help them do their job better.
Shelli Pavone, the CEO of Inlightened who has dedicated her career to health care, explains on TikTok that tracking your symptoms and conducting individual research can provide your doctor with more context for your care. We want to believe that our doctors have thought of everything, but what happens when they haven’t?
What the doctor tells you in your appointment may only be a “working diagnosis” conceived from what you’ve told them and their own medical background, or possibly a second opinion.
A helpful tip learned in medical school can potentially lead your doctor to explore other diagnostic possibilities they may have prematurely dismissed.
The key is to ask for your differential diagnosis for your symptoms or the process they went through to narrow down their possible cause.
A fourth-year medical student, Dorender Dankwa, shares with users what you can do if you’re not quite sure that your doctor is hearing you.
Again, this relies on asking your doctor specific questions about how they rule out other possible diagnoses and “what’s the evidence for and against that differential?”
According to medical research cited in the book Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a diagnosis is a collaborative process. So, why are we sometimes on the receiving end of a long speech in the doctor’s office rather than engaged in an active conversation?
Ask your doctors every question you have, and don’t be afraid to do so.
Perhaps the best thing we can do is educate ourselves on the diagnostic process itself, and make sure to do our own research.
Then, as a more confident, informed patient, you can better engage in your care. If we don’t advocate for ourselves, who will?
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