Don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion.
Or a third.
When it comes to your health, you have to put you first and that means not being afraid to stand your ground and getting yourself heard and taken seriously.
No one likes to make a fuss, especially us Brits, but the stiff upper lip needs to be abandoned when you feel things aren’t right. You know your body better than anyone else.
I asked for a second opinion last year on something. The consultant I spoke to didn’t like it and felt challenged. She got short-tempered and annoyed with me! Bed-side manner rating of zero!
But as patients, we are allowed to ask and shouldn’t be made to feel bad for doing so.
We need to shelve the sometimes ridiculous deference we have towards doctors and especially cocky consultants.
Clinicians get things wrong. They miss things. Most of the time they have the final say.
However, this can, in some cases, prove to be catastrophic and patients die…on their watch.
The case of 13 year-old Martha Mills is a tragic example of this. In 2021, Martha died from sepsis at King’s College Hospital in London because of a failure to escalate her to intensive care after her family’s concerns about her deteriorating condition were not responded to promptly.
Martha’s Rule will change this enabling you or a family member to request an urgent review of your care or their care.
This is similar to Ryan’s Rule in Australia developed in response to the tragic death of Ryan Saunders, who died in 2007 from an undiagnosed Streptococcal infection, which led to Toxic Shock Syndrome.
Don’t misinterpret this blog as a rant because it isn’t.
Clinicians save lives and do a mind-blowingly great job too under extreme pressures but they are also flawed professionals who make mistakes and don’t always recognise developing problems (Crawford, 2023).
What I am referring to is the cultural dysfunction we have lived with for donkey’s years and that is simply putting up with things or accepting a doctor’s word as ‘gospel’.
As Abbasi (2023) notes,
In a system that perpetuates the power of doctors, that reinforces the belief that “doctor knows best,” what’s really required from health professionals is a daily dose of humility that recognises our fallibility.
Doctors themselves, at least some of them, are in support of Martha’s Rule because they know how valuable it is to get a pair of fresh eyes on a problem. This requires other healthcare professionals to speak-up when they see something that isn’t right.
It is about working in partnership with patients and empowering them so that decision making can be shared and some say for doctors to ‘celebrate’ their fallibility.
The bottom line is this – if in doubt, shout! And if no one is listening, say it louder, Martha’s Rule is there for a purpose.
Patients need to be more assertive in asking for help and getting other opinions. Of course doctors are busy and they don’t like being challenged but it’s your life on the line.
Make some noise if you have to because life doesn’t come with a repeat button. Be heard.
One more thing….
The Lord Chief Justice in 2001 issued a stark warning to the medical profession that the courts would no longer apply a deferential “doctor knows best” doctrine in medical negligence cases.
In the bad old days, doctors were placed on an elevated pedestal of superior rank and were authoritative and patronising. Some still are.
The age of deference looks as if it is slowly sinking and we are at last seeing a real sea-change in doctors being more transparent and showing humility by admitting that they do not always know what’s best.
The doctor knows best model is out of date and no longer enough. It is paternalistic and dangerous.
Dr Atul Gawande explored the nature of fallibility in the 2014 Reith Lectures and suggested that preventing avoidable mistakes was a key challenge for the future of medicine. It still is.