My Open Minded Doctor

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to give a quick recent story about a doctor I have that I feel is very unique because he is so open minded.

I have a medical doctor I see once and a while and he is very kind and compassionate toward his patients. He knows I suffer from tinnitus and always asks how I am doing. He too suffers from profound hearing loss, but luckily doesn't suffer from tinnitus.

Every time I see him he always asks me about the most current research regarding hearing loss and tinnitus. He also asks me about various treatments he sees on the internet and asks my opinion about them and whether it is something he should invest looking into. This always surprised me because why would a doctor be asking a patient about potential future medical treatments? One day I asked him why he always asks me and not another doctor in the field and he said, "Patients are more invested in their own illnesses and will research specific topics more intensely than some doctors. I bet there are ENTs who don't know as much about tinnitus or the future treatments for tinnitus and hearing loss as you do." This kind of surprised me and I told him that it was very open minded of him to listen to what his patients think/know about something.

I then told him a quick story about a doctor in my past who was the complete opposite of him and how this other doctor was very dismissive towards me because I disagreed with a diagnosis he gave me based on my own research. It later turned out that I WAS RIGHT after I went to another doctor who correctly diagnosed me. After hearing this story he said, "That's the issue with doctors these days, they have too much ego. They always feel they are 100% right and know it all. By disagreeing with them and bringing up another possibility they feel you are challenging their knowledge and ability."

I wanted to share this story because it opened my eyes in a lot of ways and because I feel we all have had similar experience with dismissive doctors.

Jack