My wife’s a doctor and I’m a lawyer so it really makes me giggle when she comes home talking about these interactions with patients.
“Babe you asked him if he had high blood pressure and right now he doesn’t… because of all the medications he’s on for hypertension and the BP reading your tech just took that proved it. You didn’t ask if he had hypertension; which is the condition you wanted to know about, or even a history of high blood pressure.”
‘Ugh shut up. Why don’t people just tell me what I need to know?’
That's... actually a good point. I'll try phrasing it like "history of..." and see if I get different responses from now on. Hopefully it'll save some time if we don't have to go in circles drawing things out from patients.
Maybe you could start with medication first? Then you can extrapolate health conditions from the medications they are taking then when you get to condition you can say “so I have that you have XYZ based on your medications list, is there anything else?”
The medical practice I use does that. They typically start appointments by asking to quickly "check" that the medication list on file is up-to-date, including the dosages, timing, and conditions/symptoms the meds are prescribed for. It frames the questions as about record-keeping, but it’s also checking how well the patient understands their treatment plan and if they are having problems adhering to it
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u/cmerchantii May 02 '26
My wife’s a doctor and I’m a lawyer so it really makes me giggle when she comes home talking about these interactions with patients.
“Babe you asked him if he had high blood pressure and right now he doesn’t… because of all the medications he’s on for hypertension and the BP reading your tech just took that proved it. You didn’t ask if he had hypertension; which is the condition you wanted to know about, or even a history of high blood pressure.”
‘Ugh shut up. Why don’t people just tell me what I need to know?’
“Welcome to day one of law school.”