their services.
are really sick, but the physician can save your life, end
your pain once and for all, fix something so it never
bothers you again, or manage a chronic illness so that it
has as little impact on your life as possible, you will be
a favored patient. You are a walking billboard to your
physician's skill (even if she is the only one to recognize
it). Thus, the cooperative patient who complies with
the physician's recommendations and is open to various
alternatives is likely to have a happy and hard-working
physician.
but on further questioning admists has five drinks every
Friday or Saturday, has sky-high cholesterol and a father
who died of a heart attack at age forty-five. He rarely
exercises and his blood pressure is moderately elevated,
but he is not diabetic (at least not yet). Modern medicine
can greatly decrease his risk of heart attack and stroke:
the treatment involves medication and lifestyle changes.
Mr. Jones insists on trying diet changes first, before any
medication or other lifestyle changes, in spite of having
failed at numerous diets in the past. He has now become
either a project or a lost cause most likely the latter.
Mr. Jones is a managed care "success": he's using no
medication and few resources. Patients change insurance
plans so often that he will probably have his heart attack
on another plan. However, his disease process continues
unabated and his doctor who went to medical school