I wonder how you feel about having a new consultant? If you are in the position to choose do you stick with who you know or do you shake it up and try a new opinion. I suppose it can come down to more than one factor. Personal choice. Prior experience. Circumstances. Even simple personal interaction: do you and the consultant gel? Some times that choice is out of your hands and you have no option than to roll with it.
On the whole, me personally, I like consistency. The security and comfort of knowing who I am dealing with especially if it’s a consultant who I feel has helped us move our situation forward. It also feels like there has been an investment of time building up the relationship. Setting the foundations for the care plan, you know the long term path you are going to be on for this particular health issue.
The consultant who you have dealt with numerous times before should know your history. The allergies that can kill you. The pain relief that is more effective for you. Drugs which make you sick. Your quirks, fears and the avenues you have tried which have not been successful. All of this makes your appointments more productive and less stressful.
A new consultant to me feels like a massive step back. Well you are starting a relationship from square one. They don’t know your history. Prior surgeries. When they ask details about the prior procedure and you aren’t totally sure but the doctor that had been sat in the chair before knew exactly because he had preformed the operation.
Sure we have been in the position when appointments with one consultant felt like a constant circle of tests, new drugs then radio silence to then have to start again. In that position we were close to asking for someone new. Luckily that happened without our input and the person who took over we had seen in the clinic previously so it didn’t feel like a complete reset.
So here we were needing to start a process again. An issue that has been ongoing for numerous years was back. Two prior surgeries had seen the problem, I won’t say vanish, but be manageable. However now things were getting bad again. The last time this happened the old consultant who had carried out the last operation assured us nothing had changed but we weren’t convinced. We didn’t ask for a second opinion but found a way to manage. Now that wasn’t an option.
A GP referral and authorisation from the private medical insurance had us facing the decision. Do we stick with what we know or do we start from scratch. As it happened the option was taken from us. The old consultant wasn’t on the list of people we could see. We were given two names and one wasn’t available. Door number two it was.
We walked into the appointment, a few questions later and less than a minute of ‘can you do this.’ and the consultant sits down and says you are in a bad way we need to see what is going on in there. Wow… no barrage of questions. No detailed history. Simple observation of the patients movement, posture and wincing and we have taken a bigger step forward than I was expecting. He writes on a piece of paper. Go and book this test, then book this appointment. I want to see you back here in two weeks.
So now we have a short wait to find out what is going on. Its a little more than two weeks as we couldn’t get the scan. Here’s hoping he keeps the momentum up. Ex