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Get the Right Doctor and Save Your Life

by Lila J. Saks with Estelle Knowland

86 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1967; ISBN 1-4120-1590-1; US$14.00, C$16.00, EUR11.50, £8.00

There are hundreds of thousands of patients misdiagnosed in the United States. This book helps you avoid being one of them - by finding the right doctor, getting the right opinion and the right care.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book There are hundreds of thousands of patients misdiagnosed in the United States. This book helps you avoid being one of them - by finding the right doctor, getting the right opinion and the right care

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About the Author Professional Work 1948-1950 Dental Assistant 1951- present Wife and mother, assisting my husband with his menswear business 1971 Semerad Ingelheart Personnel Agency 1971-1975 Aames Personnel Services 1975-1999 Ran my own agency, Diversified Personnel Services --A full service operation 2002 Writing Community Work Political volunteer - 35 years Caring Committee - 15 years Facilitator in helping people get into the right doctor

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Excerpts

INTRODUCTION

How much effort are you willing to spend to save your life or the life of a loved one? I have learned over time that there must be no limit.

• In my thirties, I was misdiagnosed with Addison's disease and told that I would not live very long. I'm still here at seventy-three.
• My brother-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer by Dr. Mote. But it wasn't until six months later that other doctors agreed with this diagnosis. When the surgery was finally done, they just closed him up right away. It was too late.
• My husband, Bob, was misdiagnosed with a heart condition, put on Endural twenty-two years ago, but he's still here.
• Ten years after that, trembling in his arm caused by a tennis injury was misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease, putting him on L-Dopa and other drugs for over four years.
• My sister was diagnosed with hemorrhoids, when in fact she had colon cancer. She's still here, too, but because of the misdiagnosis had to have a colostomy.

My mother was in her eighties when she complained of not feeling well, and she was not a complainer. She had visited her doctor twice that week. I wanted her admitted to the hospital for tests, but her doctor rejected this because..."she wasn't getting any younger." I 'll tell you the story of how I was able to talk her doctor into admitting her when in fact he did not want to. And that once admitted, her tests showed she was having heart failure. My granddaughter had aplastic anemia, which in severe cases is usually fatal. The process of selecting the most capable doctor was essential. I'll tell you how I was able to get a list of the best doctors throughout the United States, and to decide who was the best for her illness. And then my daughter was misdiagnosed as having allergies, when in truth she had Cushing syndrome, a hormonal disorder. Finding out the correct diagnosis for her, and how to find her the right doctor are yet other stories. When my husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer, our search for his care and cure was the most intense of all. He was, we both were, faced with many choices, none of them wonderful. How we proceeded is important to all men. As physicians say, if men live long enough, ninety-eight percent of them will eventually have prostate cancer.

When a very good friend of ours had severe prostate cancer and was being treated by the wrong doctors, my husband took him to see his our specialist, but perhaps too late. Our friend could have been spared from dying so soon, or could even have been cured, but some doctors' egos got in the way of "second opinions".

To deal with any doctor, to be able to recommend to your family and friends how to get the appropriate physician, how you can determine what is really bothering you before going to the doctor - how to explain where your pain is and its intensity and other symptoms * are what I'll be explaining in this book. I don't mean you should tell the doctor what is medically wrong with you, for that is his job. But he needs to know, very clearly, what's going on with your body. I will tell you how to find out how good your doctor is. I'll encourage you never, never to feel that you cannot go to another doctor because you don't want to hurt your own physician's feelings. Please don't tell me people would not be that timid. One of our dearest friends did just this. A specialist with an outstanding reputation had said he could help our friend. Either because he didn't want to make waves or didn't want to hurt his doctor's feelings, he stayed in the care of his own doctor who told him that he could take care of him just as well as the specialist. Watching him enter the hospital, I knew our friend would never get out alive. One doctor's ego may have gotten in the way of good judgment.

This reminds me of the time a close friend of mine asked me to pretend I was she and talk to her mother's doctor. My friend feared that the pain her mother was having, near her shoulder, was a recurrence of cancer. With my friend beside me I phoned the doctor, told him of the fear that the cancer had returned. He said it couldn't be that. I said I wanted "my" mother in the hospital. He demurred. I pressed. But it took her husband (a judge) to persuade the doctor to admit the mother into the hospital, and yes, the cancer was back. The doctor never apologized. Besides that, her brother still kept going to that same doctor for treatments. Go figure!!

We need to turn to first-rate professionals from time to time. But how do you know which specialist you should see? Finding the best doctor and the right doctor for you is what this book is about. The dread of the unknown, and the anxiety about going to the doctor, any doctor, to find out what is wrong with you, and then another one for a second or third opinion, can get in the way of our getting excellent care. I am not a medical or legal professional. But I can write this book because I have a good deal of experience with all of the above. Besides, we're the ones who have to help, and work as hard as we can, to take care of our loved ones and ourselves.

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Catalogue Information

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