Oh, yes we are!!
An article from The National Post includes the below quotation:
Dr. Topol billed Goodsell as the patient of the future because she’s an activist patient, someone who regards her health as a collaboration between herself and her doctor. More and more patients are regarding their health in a similar manner.
In fact, activist patients are changing the way doctors practice medicine.
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Some things that doctors do aren’t supported by science…. (read more)
Patients who question their doctors are changing the face of medicine – and (some) physicians are embracing the shiftThat’s right, we can often figure out our needs in much more appropriate and safer ways and that can mean saving ourselves from further harm in many instances.
Below is a post that includes links to articles from Beyond Meds that help you consider how to approach the health professionals in your life. Hint: YOU’RE the authority on you.
I’ve cut and pasted it below:
It should be understood that a great number of the readers of this blog have been harmed by the medical profession. Many of us have been gravely debilitated and disabled. Iatrogenic harm is injury incurred by medical treatment. Such injury is deeply traumatic and largely denied by the perpetrators and also by the medical establishment in general which adds insult to the injury and makes seeking help to heal literally dangerous. Those who have had such injury need to learn how to take care of themselves as they move forward. It behooves everyone else to be aware of the fact that iatrogenic injury is very common so that they might take care to avoid it. See: Medically induced illness: iatrogenic injury
My readers often ask how they might go about finding a good doctor. I’ve written about how to do that before and am sharing a link below. It’s a skill that needs to be learned, but it’s entirely possible to find good people with practice and also to recognize when you need to move on and find someone else. I now know many professionals of all stripes who are deeply respectful. It remains difficult to find new ones, but I now trust myself completely and go about doing what I need to do on the occasions that I need to find someone new for whatever reason.
Basically we need to find doctors who understand the issue deeply. Like this guy:
It’s also helpful to understand that with the internet you can feel people out via email and phone and a lot of MDs are willing to consult via phone. The two MDs I consult with most frequently these days live out of state. Cast your net wide if you need to. Stay safe and well-respected.
More on how to trust Internal Guidance at Mad in America.
NEW: To see a professional or not – “my journey to healing from the iatrogenic injury psychiatry imposed upon me has been extremely isolated, by necessity and because there has been NO available professionals with the appropriate skill sets, I’ve had to find my own healing path. This is, I imagine much more common than is ever let on. There are NO appropriate professionals available in a large number of individual cases. And if people are traumatized in particular ways they risk retraumatization when they approach systems supposedly set up for such care.” (read more here)
I will add that in the event of something emergency-like, when you cannot interview the doctor you are going to see it’s sometimes necessary to simply prepare oneself for something that may be quite difficult and even traumatic. Such is life. We do need to learn to negotiate difficult situations as well…it gets easier as we gain confidence in ourselves. We no longer have our eyes closed so if we must see a less than sympathetic MD for something urgent we can navigate to get what we need and then get the heck out and find someone better suited for us once the urgent need has passed.
I also wrote about two psychologists still trapped by their conditioning with whom I had some painful encounters. I do, indeed, still run into the very upsetting reality those of us who’ve been marked by psychiatry are subject to as well. All the helping and healing professions are subject to this sort of disrespect. It’s hard to find professionals who are profoundly free of such bigotry and conditioning. I understand. I also know that I’ve found many who have freed themselves and continue to find more all the time. Have faith in both yourself and humanity. There are good people everywhere. Find them.
- Demoted…by another “relatively enlightened” mental health professional
- Freaking out therapists: on being subject to the clinical gaze
*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications. If your MD agrees to help you do so, do not assume they know how to do it well even if they claim to have experience. They are generally not trained in discontinuation and may not know how to recognize withdrawal issues. A lot of withdrawal issues are misdiagnosed to be psychiatric problems. This is why it’s good to educate oneself and find a doctor who is willing to learn with you as your partner in care. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up
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