Tip: What patient advocates should ask
Ilene Corina, president, PULSE of NY, a grassroots, not-for-profit organization focused on increasing patient safety and reducing medical errors. Credit: Handout
Ever leave a doctor's office feeling like you didn't get the answers you wanted? Have you ever been a patient in a hospital and felt uninformed about the care you were receiving?
You need to speak up, or let somebody speak up for you.
"The person in the white coat is a professional in a job that is equal to any other job when we need their services," says Ilene Corina, a Wantagh-based patient-safety advocate. "We cannot feel intimidated by them looking at their watch or having one hand on the door ready to go."
Corina is president of PULSE (pulseofny.org), a grassroots, not-for-profit organization focused on increasing patient safety and reducing medical errors. Among PULSE's activities are patient-advocacy training courses, in which family members are given the skills to navigate the health-care system to help ensure a better outcome for their loved ones.
But being an advocate is not for everyone. Often, a spouse is not the best choice because he or she is too emotionally involved with the patient or may simply lack the necessary skills, Corina says. "We've had people leave the course saying, 'I can't do this for my wife. I'm not aggressive enough.' " (To get an idea of an advocate's duties, take a look at PULSE's Advocate Form online at bit.ly/advocateform.)
Even if you don't have an advocate, you can still speak up for yourself, especially at the doctor's office. When the doctor sits down with you after the examination to give you the diagnosis, he or she will typically ask if you have any questions. But depending on the news, you may feel overwhelmed and not be thinking clearly. Instead of saying you don't have any questions, Corina says, "Take a deep breath, and say you need another appointment tomorrow, or you need a half-hour to think about what you just told me."
If you want to attend PULSE's advocacy-training workshop, the next one is Oct. 28 at South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Freeport. You must register by Friday. Cost is $45. For more information, go to svy.mk/ozjGuq or call 516-579-4711.
Also, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality offers a free booklet on questions to ask your doctor at ahrq.gov/questions. To order a free printed copy of "Be More Involved in Your Health Care: Tips for Patients," call 800-358-9295.
