The Secrets of Medical Decision Making: How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of the Health Care Machine - Softcover

Oleg I. Reznik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932690174 ISBN 13: 9781932690170

Publisher: Loving Healing Press, 2006

Synopsis

We are all patients at some time. Is the medical industry giving us the best treatment possible, at the best price? We all know that it isn't. This new book shows what goes on behind the scenes of the current medical care and how it impacts the patient. Dr. Reznik describes actual cases from his clinical practice showing the most common paths that lead to increased patient suffering. This book offers possible solutions for outpatient, inpatient, preventive, and end-of-life care settings.

Learn about:

• The Medical Box and how it affects the care you receive
• When to avoid risky and uncomfortable tests
• Hazards of under-treatment, over-treatment, and mistreatment
• How to make an informed medical decision in your best interests
• Cancer and how to approach your treatment
• Planning for quality of life during end-of-life issues

Foreword by Colin P. Kopes-Kerr, MD, JD, MPH, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Family Medicine, and Program Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program, at University Hospital and SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine, Stony Brook, NY.

"The Secrets of Medical Decision Making should be read by everyone, because all of us are sometimes in need of medical care. It is an eye-opener, a call to arms and a guide."
-Robert Rich, Ph.D., author of Cancer: A Personal Challenge

"Dr. Reznik candidly exposes the conflicting interests inherent in contemporary medical practice. This empowering and insightful book is a must read for healthcare professionals and the patients they treat."
-Beth Maureen Gray, R.N., B.S.

"The Secrets of Medical Decision Making awakens the reader rather quickly with startling revelations about the lack of seriousness the health care industry has towards a society of wellness. If this book at least motivates its readers to become more involved in medical decision making when seeking treatment, it will have succeeded as a critically needed public service."
- James W. Clifton, Ph.D., LCSW

"As a Canadian and a health care provider this book frightens me. This book lays out what our country is headed for if we privatize health care in Canada. A must read for everyone working, or accessing, health care in North America and for anyone who has any doubts that we must take drastic action to preserve Universal Health Care in Canada."
- Ian Landry, MA, MSW, RSW

About this title

About the Author

Willamette Family Medical Center and in private practice, on staff at Salem Memorial Hospital, Salem, OR. Family Medicine Residency Program at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 2000-2003; MD degree cum laude at SUNY Downstate, Brooklyn, NY 1996-2000 Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience cum laude at New York University New York, NY 1991-1995;

From the Inside Flap

We are all patients at some time. Is the medical industry giving us the best treatment possible, at the best price? We all know that it isn t. This new book shows what goes on behind the scenes of the current medical care and how it impacts the patient.

Dr. Reznik describes actual cases from his clinical practice showing the most common paths that lead to increased patient suffering. This book offers possible solutions for outpatient, inpatient, preventive, and end-of-life care settings.
Learn about: ? The Medical Box and how it affects the care you receive ? When to avoid risky and uncomfortable tests ? Hazards of under-treatment, over-treatment, and mistreatment ? How to make an informed medical decision in your best interests ? Cancer and how to approach your treatment ? Planning for quality of life during end-of-life issues

Foreword by Colin P. Kopes-Kerr, MD, JD, MPH, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Family Medicine, and Program Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program, at University Hospital and SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine, Stony Brook, NY.

What People Are Saying about Secrets of Medical Decision Making

The Secrets of Medical Decision Making should be read by everyone, because all of us are sometimes in need of medical care. It is an eye-opener, a call to arms and a guide. Robert Rich, Ph.D., author of Cancer: A Personal Challenge

Dr. Reznik candidly exposes the conflicting interests inherent in contemporary medical practice. This empowering and insightful book is a must read for healthcare professionals and the patients they treat. Beth Maureen Gray, R.N., B.S.

The Secrets of Medical Decision Making awakens the reader rather quickly with startling revelations about the lack of seriousness the health care industry has towards a society of wellness. If this book at least motivates its readers to become more involved in medical decision making when seeking treatment, it will have succeeded as a critically needed public service. James W. Clifton, Ph.D., LCSW

As a Canadian and a health care provider this book frightens me. This book lays out what our country is headed for if we privatize health care in Canada. A must read for everyone working, or accessing, health care in North America and for anyone who has any doubts that we must take drastic action to preserve Universal Health Care in Canada. Ian Landry, MA, MSW, RSW Extensive bookstore/library direct mail campaign Nationwide radio tour Targeted media release campaign

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Health care is becoming increasingly complex, with multiple factors affecting decision making. You may have heard about or experienced some of the shortcomings of this system first hand. People of all ages and all degrees of health are affected by the current way of medical practice. It starts with infants, who are put through a variety of tests by overzealous physicians responding to their own or their parent s fears. Young women become unnecessarily worried from their Pap smear screening, prenatal testing, and encountering a wall of defensive medicine during childbirth. Middle aged men are enticed into a highly questionable practice of pros-tate cancer screening and ending up with surgeries that, instead of prolonging their life, leave them deprived of their basic human capacities. There are a slew of breast biopsies and mastectomies as a result of screening mammography in women, without concomitant prolongation of life but with an enormous mental and physical toll. Finally, the elderly are put through testing and procedures in the last six months of life the evidence now clearly shows that this actually slightly shorten their lives when compared with those who did not have the option of utilizing health care system to the same extent (due to living in regions of the US with lower Health Care funding).

When we enter the system as patients, we are simply hoping that a physician will take good care of us. We also sometimes hope that health care will prevent us from getting sick, discover and diagnose any hidden illness, cure or treat it, and possibly make us live longer. The physician of course tries to live up to some of these expectations.

I am a doctor, but this doesn t protect me from health problems. Recently, I had a kidney stone, and became a patient. The physician taking care of me in the emergency room accurately diagnosed and treated the problem. At the discharge, the physician told me that I "needed" to follow up with a urologist. Now that I have a kidney stone I should have a urologist. Those two go together in her mind. She was the usual overworked senior resident in the emergency room of a university hospital. She told me what she tells all the patients discharged after the discovery of a kidney stone. From the point of view of the usual medical training, she was an exemplary physician. She gave her recommendation with the best intentions: she truly believed that she was doing me good by giving that advice. Physicians are systematically taught to give the same advice to everyone; we do not have the time nor the training to pay attention to individual differences. She was quite surprised when I told her that I wasn t planning to follow her advice, that I simply intended to alter my diet. At that point I opted not to follow her medical advice and not to subject myself to additional testing with the time commitment, inconvenience, and expense that it entails, let alone the risks of false-positive results and unnecessary procedures with their side-effects. That was my personal preference. Whether or not my decisions were wise is not the issue. Rather, it is my hope to empower patients and their family members to recognize the freedom of choice even when none is presented and to know that the information they lack for decision making can be obtained by directly questioning the system. It is also my intention to decrease undue expectations that the medical system itself fosters, and to deflate the balloon of medical omnipotence.

I call this system The Health Care Machine because it has become mechanical. The race for clinical productivity is turning health care into another form of an assembly line. There are other factors I ll soon discuss that push us in the same direction. A physician who sees you is no longer an agent who works for you. Rather, he or she is trying to balance a number of conflicting demands. As I watched a TV interview at an advertising agency that created a television ad for one of the frequently used drugs, the spokesperson stated " the medications now are a part of a healthy lifestyle " She truly believed that and wanted the rest of the world to believe it as well. So it is with the physicians and other health care workers who are placed in a position (and I call this position The Medical Box) that pressures them to have only a standard, mechanical response to any given set of problems. Eventually, being in that box makes them believe that those are the only possible answers. I think a patient can navigate through this system much more successfully by being aware of its limita-tions. In the body of this book, I present vignettes from my clinical practice, experience in the medical school and residency, and personal research. Mostly they are the accounts of actual patients I have cared for, directly or indirectly. I have altered the details to make them unrecognizable while maintaining the essence of each story intact. They all demonstrate the fac-ets and influences of "the rules of the game": the game of health care. It is my hope that from reading these accounts with the accompanying discus-sions, you will understand the motives influencing your doctor s decisions and will learn how to be more self-reliant.

Throughout the book I placed subheadings: Patient/Family Perspective, Physician s Perspective, Societal Perspective and Spiritual/Philosophical Perspective. Though these subdivisions are somewhat artificial, since to some degree, one perspective contains all of the others, I hope that they will ease the flow and absorption of the material. Patient/Family Perspective deals with the issues that most closely relate to, or would be most helpful for prospective patients and their families. Physician s Perspective reveals physicians percep-tion of the issue. Societal Perspective shows the impact on the society as a whole. Spiritual/Philosophical Perspective addresses spiritual and philosophical aspects of medical care, aspects that cannot truly be separated from any endeavor seeking to understand a human being.

Edition details

• Publisher: Loving Healing Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932690174
• ISBN 13: 9781932690170
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196