Reply #80: I'm sure we have the same right in Washington [View All]

[Heddi]

however I can tell you that patients that request AND KEEP copies of their medical records are very few and very far between.

I mean, I see patients ALL THE TIME in the hospital--ask them if they've had surgeries and they're like "uh, yeah, once I got something operated on. I don't know what it was for. Cancer...maybe a heart problem...oh..wait..I think I had a blood clot....."

Ask them what medications they're on. They don't know. They take 2 blue pills in the morining and 2 white pills at night. Fine. So you try to find out WHY they're taking medication just to narrow the field. THey don't know. maaaybe high blood pressure. Maaaybe something with their thyroid. They might have a heart condition. They don't know. They're not sure.

People put far too much faith in their doctors. I see this primarily with older folks who have seen the same Dr since Moses was sent down the river. They feel that if the Dr says it, it must be true. If the doctor doesn't say it, it doesn't exist. They feel that asking questions of the doctor, even to clarify orders, is somehow overstepping their bounds as patients. If the doctor wanted them to know, or felt they should know, he would tell them. He is god. He knows all.

And even if you get your medical records, it's hard for people without any medical terminology or medical background to make heads or tails of a cardiac catherization report, or CAT scan report, especially since so much of the report has the procedural information (patient was laid on the table at 1315 with a systolic of 50 by doppler. Lidocaine 1% SQ was injected in the right medial femoral area and 14-gauge schwanz-gans insterted into the distal lateral right femoral artery....)

How many people know what a bilateral salpingooophorectomy is?

Hell--it's hard for ME to sometimes get the gist of what the hell they're talking about in medical records, and I"m a freaking nursing student. I feel bad for someone with an 8th grade education to get 50 pages of records and try to make heads or tails out of them.

Same for lab tests...so often, multiple tests are run that don't really have a bearing to the medical diagnosis (schisiocytes, band cells, abs neytrophyl %, etc), but are done just because they're part of comprehensive pannels, and don't MEAN anything unless additional tests are done. Medications alter tests. Previously diagnosed medical complications alter tests. To give someone a 4-page CBC, SMAK, Urinalysis, tryponin, etc, labsheet is like giving a 4 year old a novel written in greek and asking them how they felt about the paragraph on page 954....

BUT--that being said, I've had patients who understand that they are the best advocate for their care in the world. They get copies of EVERYTHING. They keep logs of EVERYTHING. They read the books, they ask the questions, and they know just as much about their diagnosis, contributing causes, etc, than the Dr or nurse does. Those patients are a relief. Ask them what meds they're taking and they'll tell you every med, every generic name, every dose, how the pills look, what the side effects are. Ask them what surgeries they've had and they know the day, date, time, dr, procedure, hospital, and length of hospital stay. Generally, those people carry around very large folders of medical information with them. They're great. It's intimidating to care for them, though, because they really know their stuff. You can't bluff with them and give them evasive answers if you don't know and have to bide time til you can find out from another nurse.