Trial and error. That’s why a doctor’s office is called a practice, right? It’s the reason we say “practicing medicine” rather than “perfecting medicine.”
No one is perfect, doctors especially. Still, knowledge aside, a good physician listens to his or her patients, even if it goes against what they know about illness. In many ways, seeing a doctor can often feel like being a number rather than a name. Personal experience can attest to the difference between good bedside manner and the opposite.
Tori Geib probably knows this better than anyone. Her countless visits to different specialists for back pain soon turned into a nightmare.“I saw three rheumatologists to find out why I had this pain, but none took me seriously,” Geib told Health.
She went on to explain that one doctor even wrote off her pain as “depression manifesting as pain in my body.
”From anti-inflammatory medication to steroids to muscle relaxers and antidepressants, Geib had seen the backside of a pill bottle too many times to count.
Still, her pain didn’t abate. It got to the point where she started to question herself, wondering if maybe she was imagining what was going on in her own body.
“I almost felt like I was gaslighting myself,” she said. “Was this all in my head? Surely all these doctors couldn’t be wrong; after all, they were the experts.”