Mason was my personal record holder.
A simple and kind man, I admitted him to a nursing home from the hospital where he would live out the rest of his life.
He was on 56 medications.
You read that right—56.
I don’t know what was more appalling, that he was on that many medications or that the hospitalists that took care of him simply passed him on from shift to shift until he was discharged, never having looked at the mass of meds he was on.
Mason’s an extreme case, but his story is instructive—he never had anyone close enough advising him to say “no.”
Here’s how you should think when the doctor recommends you do something—take a pill, take a test, anything.
There are only two answers to her request:
“No.” or “Hell Yes!”
Life’s full of choices.
If you say yes to everything, you’ve actually said yes to nothing.
Medical care is the same way. You can’t say yes to everything.
If you do, all the unintended consequences of all the things you say yes to will far exceed any benefit.
So you have to use discernment.
You have to pick and choose.
How? What’s your measuring stick.?
“No.” or “Hell Yes!”
Discuss the risks and benefits of any intervention with your clinician very closely.
Medication. Testing. Therapy.
All have consequences—good and bad.
And not all of the consequences are felt by you.
Some are felt by your clinician—malpractice prevention for example.
Some are for your clinician’s employer—gotta keep that CT scanner running.
Some are for your insurer—getting a test checks off a box and that means your insurer gets paid more money.
No need to go into any of those with your clinician, just know that there’s more going on than just what’s good for you—so ask about the pros and cons as they concern yourself.
If the benefits to you are not blockbuster, if they’re not “WOW!” then consider passing on her recommendation and ask about the alternatives.
With so much healthcare out there to be consumed and so much being pushed at you for reasons other than your health—you simply MUST be a discriminating consumer.
How do you know if you’re discriminating enough?
Look at how many medications you’re on. Look at your medical bills and check out how many tests you’ve undergone.
If the total strikes you as “a lot,” you probably need to be applying the “No or Hell Yes” test more often.
Because I bet most of the healthcare you purchased did you some good, but very, very few were provable “hell yeses”.
So apply the “No or Hell Yes” measure to every healthcare intervention and you’ll be the healthier for it.
Otherwise, you’ll end up like Mason, with 56 meds and facing a life of premature infirmity.
Mason’s story has a happy ending, though. He and I sat down and decided which four medications were “hell yeses” and discarded the others.
And as you would expect, two months later, he was out of the nursing home and living on his own.
He told me he will never take another new pill again unless he can stop one of the ones he’s taking now.
That’s his “hell yes.”
What’s yours?