Family Health

How to Spot the Doctor with Good Bedside Manners

The guiding spirit of modern medicine, Sir William Osler (1849-1919), once said, "Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom."

Good bedside manners start with the way your doctor talks to you, looks at you, and puts you at ease. Good bedside manners apply in your doctor's consulting room, a hospital ward, in a corridor, or on the phone.

Family Health

The Compassionate Doctor

Choosing the right doctor is essentail for so many reasons, not least of which is because any serious illness is rarely treated in a one-off procedure. With treatment requiring regular check-ups and ongoing visits, you may need to maintain contact with your doctor for weeks, months, even years. In light of this, you both need to get along with each other in every way possible.

Family Health

Choosing a Doctor: Part 3

When dealing with a serious illness, you may make some assumptions about your doctor that will do little to help you. For example, if your doctor acts decisively and appears to be in control, you may assume that he knows what he is doing. The opposite is often true: When people are unsure of what they are doing, they often take over in a manner designed to hide their uncertainty.

Family Health

Choosing A Doctor: Part 2

Building a therapeutic relationship with your doctor is essential to your eventual recovery, so it is vital you both recognize each other's strengths and limitations.

Family Health

Choosing A Doctor: Part 1

Before deciding which treatment is best for your illness, you need to find the right doctor. But who is the right doctor for you? Is it the doctor who saves your life or the one who gives you hope? Is it the one who diagnoses your problem right the first time or the one who doesn’t make you feel rushed? Is it the one who explains everything to you in a comforting way or the one who makes all your decisions for you?

Aging and Getter Older

Bedside Manners

So how do you communicate with someone who is seriously ill?

The first thing to remember is that they may not understand their own responses. It’s not uncommon for people who have been diagnosed with a serious illness to question their sanity.

"I feel as if I’m going out of my mind".

"What’s the matter with me? I can’t seem to think straight".

Natural Health

Speaking to Someone Who Has a Serious Illness

Most people who are well and never experienced a serious illness themselves are often at a loss for words on how to talk to someone with a serious illness such as cancer, AIDS or heart disease. People tend to work on the basis that if they don’t bring up the subject perhaps the person who is ill won’t either thus sparing everyone the need to face the reality of the situation.

Aging and Getter Older

An Introduction

By way of introduction to this column, please allow me tell you a little about myself. Ever since I was a kid, I was passionate, nay obsessive, about my health. I exercised every day, ate all the right foods and kept my weight fighting fit. Swimming, martial arts, athletics, gymnastics. Cricket. I thrived on competition – both against others and against my own benchmarks.