Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care

A doctor tells readers how to tell whether they are seeing the right doctor and whether that doctor is competent, if the right tests and prescriptions are being ordered, and if preventive medicine is being recommended, among other concerns.

Many readers are likely to support McCall's observations that some health care providers are incompetent or disinterested in preventive medicine, that drugs are often overprescribed and tests unnecessarily administered. But his book is not a trashing of the modern American health care system. A Boston physician in private practice, McCall focuses on patient education as a means to balance the often lopsided power equation of patient and physician. Emphasizing the importance of ongoing patient/physician dialogue, the need for second opinions and the importance of a patient's trust in his physician, he offers charts to help evaluate one's health care provider. Besides acknowledging the existence of many individual "Dr. Wrongs," McCall also points to problems in the system, e.g., HMOs that penalize member physicians for ordering necessary but expensive tests and hospitals that may have to discharge patients before they are well. McCall encourages patients to educate themselves about their own health to improve their opportunity for receiving high-quality care. Special interest organizations and other sources of information on specific medical conditions are included.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Most consumers are at an extreme disadvantage, knowledge-wise, when dealing with physicians. McCall helps remedy this situation in an informative guide to obtaining good medical care that, conversational in organization as well as tone, divides its information into broad areas of coverage entitled by such common questions as "Are You Seeing the Right Doctor?" and "Is Your Doctor Prescribing the Right Drugs?" The broad areas are broken down by listing constituent smaller issues (e.g., "Seven Warning Signs of an Inadequate Physical Exam" ) that are then thoroughly aired. Each broad-area review ends with a "Putting It Together" section summing up the preceding information and imparting practical advice. Knowing some of what the doctor knows and being able to confirm faith in him or her can be awfully empowering, and empowerment is what McCall ultimately intends--witness the title of the final section, "Taking Control of Your Medical Care." Whether for ferreting out questionable medical practices or deepening respect for individual practitioners, this is an engaging and useful resource. Mike Tribby