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Are doctors biased against patients?

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You are here: Are Doctors Biased Against Patients? Sharing is caring!Welcome! It looks like you might be new here, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about me and my blog. My name is Julie Ryan and I live with Fibromyalgia. I've chosen to live positively, to fight back with diet and lifestyle changes and it's made a huge difference for me. The difference between living all my days in bed, and actually LIVING. I hope you'll keep reading andsubscribe to my Newsletter to make sure you don't miss a post. Thanks for visiting! *BTW, just a heads up that the post below may have affiliate links (some of my posts do).Welcome back! I'm so glad that you are here again. If you've not already, be sure to subscribe to my Newsletter and I'll update you each time I post (and occasionally I'll send you something special). Just a heads up that the post below may have affiliate links.Are Doctors Biased Against Patients? And if so, does it affect the treatment they provide.A survey from Medscape asked this question. The short answer, Yes. They are. I didn’t need a survey to tell me that. However, it is interesting to see the many ways that doctors are biased against patients.I shared a study a while back that showed that many doctors are biased against patients with Fibromyalgia. Biased might not be the right word there, as what it really came down to was that many doctors are just plain scared to treat us, or simply they don’t want to treat us because they don’t feel they can help us. I can understand that. No one wants to continue to fight what they feel is a losing battle. If I were a doctor that didn’t have any good answers for fibromyalgia (or any illness) I’d refer those patients out to someone who I hoped had better answers.But, the story in this survey seems to be a bit different.Almost 16,000 doctors filled out the survey from Medscape, which examined two factors: bias and burnout. The interesting finding reguarding burnout is that rheumatologists (the specialists that most commonly treat fibromyalgia), along with psychologists reported the lowest levels of burnout. That’s good news for us. I guess that means that those doctors who have chosen to deal with us are dealing well with their role.When asked about the causes of their burnout, bureaucracy&nbsp;(in many forms) lead the pack, sadly followed by “too many difficult patients”. A frequent comment had to do with lack of patient appreciation and respect (I do hope they know it’s a two-way street). Are we those difficult patients? What is a difficult patient? And, what can we do about it? Those are questions for another day.On to the biases:Only 16% of the doctors in this survey reported that their biases affected the treatment they give. I have a feeling this is likely where the doctors weren’t being completely honest. It’s one thing to admit to a bias, it’s another thing to admit that it actually affects the level of care that you give. Interestingly, of the doctors who reported that their bias affects treatment, 25% said that they actually give better treatment to those who they are biased against because they overcompensate for their bias.ER doctors were most likely to admit that bias affects the treatment they give. If you’ve ever been to the ER you’ve probably encountered this bias… and I doubt you’d say it had a positive outcome.Language differences were the top reported cause of bias. What’s really interesting here is that the doctors who were most likely to report bias negatively affecting their treatment were doctors who identified as Asian.Emotional Problems came in second. If this isn’t a reminder to keep your emotions in check at the doctor’s office I don’t know what is. If there’s ever a time to make sure you don’t cry it’s when you are facing a doctor. I’ve broken down in a doctor’s office a time or two and I can honestly say that doing so really let me know who that doctor was. The sad part is that many doctors do view any break as an emotional problem. It doesn’t matter how much pain we are in, to many of the doctors we are weak if we can’t keep our emotions in check.Heavier weight was a very close third. I find this humorous given the number of medical professionals I’ve met who are grossly overweight. Perhaps it’s only the fit ones that judge their patients based on weight, but I doubt it. More male doctors than females reported this as a bias. At least they are aware, but you’d think that as doctors they’d also be aware that it’s not always within the patient’s control.Doctors were most likely to report that these two biases resulted in a negative treatment. Which doctors are more likely to be biased?Overall, this was an interesting survey. It’s worth taking a look at the full survey results as there were a few other (unrelated) questions that I didn’t cover, including questions about marijuana use and prescribing habits.Another thing that I found missing from this survey, and I don’t know if it was because they didn’t ask or because the doctors didn’t respond was a bias against patients using opioid medication, or a bias against pain patients in general. This is a bias that many of us have encountered and one that is often discussed, yet there was no mention of it here.Have you encountered a doctor who was biased against you for some reason? Do you know what their bias was? Or, do you think you know?Related Posts:Excellent article, Julie! I have been to many, many doctors. Since I was in good shape physically and they couldn’t find anything “wrong”, besides the pain, fatigue and the symptoms that go with Fibro a lot of them just thought I wanted drugs. This was of course the opposite of the truth. I despise taking drugs, I wish I never had to take another one. BUT, I’m thankful for them. Necessary evil I guess. I have had the same problem with Pharmacists being biased. They see how much medication I take and Bam! I’m a drug addict. I’ve even had Pharmacists not filling prescriptions just because they wanted to talk to the doctor first, just because. This has happened several times. Doctors, Pharmacists, bias? Uh, yeah.ReplyThis site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.Spoonie. Fibro Warrior. E-health advocate.Julie Ryan was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2010 and endometriosis in 2012. She's lived with chronic migraine most of her life. In 2019 she was diagnosed with inter-cranial hypertension.Julie has a degree in Psychology, and works as a freelance writer and marketer. Freelance work allows her to work when she can and not be tied to a desk or a schedule. Julie believes in living an inspired life despite chronic illness."I have chronic illness, it doesn't have me."More about JulieBlog title inspired by The Spoon Theory, by Christine Miserandino, an excellent explanation of what it's like to live with invisible illness. Read More…I am not a doctor. I do not claim to be a doctor. I do not play a doctor on TV or the internet. I simply share my experiences and what has worked for me. We are all different and before you try any new treatment, exercise, supplement, etc you should talk with your doctor (the real one, not the one on TV). All content copyright CountingMySpoonsAny content reblogged from this site must adhere to the terms of © Copyright and TOS That page states in part:"A brief excerpt of content that does not exceed 75 words may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and authorship is properly attributed."&nbsp;&nbsp;Counting My Spoons respects your privacy. Your information will never be provided to any third party unless you provide explicit permission to do so (something I'm not likely to ever ask you to do). Read full privacy policy Help spread the word. You're awesome for doing it!

You are here: Are Doctors Biased Against Patients? Sharing is caring!Welcome! It looks like you might be new here, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about me and my blog. My name is Julie Ryan and I live with Fibromyalgia. I've chosen to live positively, to fight back with diet and lifestyle changes and it's made a huge difference for me. The difference between living all my days in bed, and actually LIVING. I hope you'll keep reading andsubscribe to my Newsletter to make sure you don't miss a post. Thanks for visiting! *BTW, just a heads up that the post below may have...

Are doctors biased against patients?

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