38 Becoming a Patient
Letting Oneself Be a Patient
Once they were sick, a few readily acknowledged their diagnosis and chose
to ‘‘let themselves be patients’’—to adopt and embrace that role and let
another provider heal them. Usually they did so if their disease lay outside
their area of expertise. Thus, pediatricians and psychiatrists with cancer
accepted their doctors’ treatments almost fully, while internists with di-
abetes, such as Eleanor’s husband, felt they could and should handle their
illness themselves. Some suggested that if they did have more expertise
in their own illnesses, they might self-doctor more. Jacob, the radiologist
with skin cancer, for example, accepted his physician’s advice, and adopted
a submissive role as a patient. He did not check the medical literature
concerning his cancer; his wife did so for him. He adopted a relatively
passive stance because his illness lay outside his area of specialization as a
radiologist, and he had ready access to colleagues with proper expertise.
I don’t know anything about my melanoma, because I’m not
clinical. I’m the picture reader, not a symptom finder. I don’t
know how I would react if I were more adept at dealing with
symptoms—how easy it would be to write prescriptions and self-
diagnose.
Jacob doesn’t mention here that his wife researches his disease for him.
Other physicians tended to ‘‘let themselves be patients’’ if, when first
diagnosed, they were young, or early in their careers. Suzanne, the
psychiatrist-in-training who was on lithium, for example, said, ‘‘I’m per-
fectly comfortable being a patient because I’ve been seeing psychiatrists
and therapists since I was nineteen!’’
At least initially, passivity as patients could arise, too, from famil-
ial models. Ronald, the WASP radiologist in his thirties who lived in
Connecticut and was HIV-positive, said:
My family was very passive when it came to the doctor-pa tient
relationship, and that’s what I also fell into: ‘‘I better not bother the
doctor and ask too many questions, because he’ll get offended.’’
Yet even those who more readily accepted patienthood tended to
judge their doctors’ decisions carefully. For example, David, the psy-
chiatrist with HIV, said, ‘‘I’m not ‘the aggressive patient’ in terms of
dictating my care. My internist is good and caring—that’s what I want.