How Well Does Your Doctor Really Understand Crohn's Disease?

Understanding how Crohn's disease affects the patient's life is probably one evaluation factor that should be taken off a doctor's performance appraisal when the patient completes the form.

The thing is, it's impossible to understand how the disease affects someone's life unless you suffer from it yourself or have a family member or close friend who does. Also, most of us are kept upright by a cadre of at least several physicians, not one.

The specialist who treats me only for Crohn's disease attempts to finish my sentences for me. However, this is because he assumes I am just like the other Crohnies he saw this week. It's annoying. Follow this conversation:

"Well, the main thing that's new is that I quit my last job. I just couldn't be on my feet all day," I began. "So I was thinking--."

"That you need to work just mornings to feel better," he interjected.

"Actually, I was planning to take a month or so off to rest and recharge," I corrected.

Now I don't mind a doctor finishing my sentences with a slew of probable medical reasons for my current complaint. But I take issue with the guesstimating about how Crohn's disease is affecting my life overall.

Most patients who reach the point where they're considered very experienced with their disease find their doctors expect a whole lot more of them than they do of newbies. I get the feeling at each appointment that if I had just been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it would get a perfunctory checkmark on a long list of expected things to occur in my chart.

Let's face it, folks. Doctors these days are forced to be businessmen and -women first and foremost. How else can they possibly deal with a broken health care system that causes them to spend half their days fighting duels with health insurance carriers?

The physicians I had 20 years ago would all rate 9s or 10s as far as appreciating how this disease has affected my life. I gave my current one a 7 because he has to be a business person in addition to a medical doctor.