Find The Doctor You Trust

Rushed appointments. Profits over patients. Faulty diagnoses. There are plenty of reasons to worry about medical providers today. A veteran RD health journalist shares hard-won lessons from her reporting—and from her family’s own health crisis.

- Michelle Crouch

In 2011, my husband, Pete, began having strange episodes of light-headedness. They lasted less than a minute and often happened when he exercised. He went to see his longtime primary care physician, who suspected he was dehydrated.

She prescribed Gatorade. But the episodes got more frequent and severe. One night at dinner with the kids, Pete completely zoned out. He didn’t understand what we were saying, and he wasn’t able to get any words out.

We immediately called his doctor, but we couldn’t get her on the phone. Her nurse referred us to a neurologist, but he had a six-week wait for an appointment. After some begging, we got in sooner, and he sent Pete for an MRI. The scan showed that Pete had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.

Thankfully, after a long and harrowing journey, Pete has fully recovered, but my experience navigating that medical crisis now helps inform and inspire my work as a health-care journalist. If I had to distill everything I’ve learned over the years as a patient, spouse, parent, and medical reporter into one lesson, it’s this: Trust but verify.

While I believe most doctors have our best interests at heart, our system is deeply flawed. Medical errors are estimated to be the third-leading cause of death in the United States— in fact, most of us will receive an incorrect or late diagnosis at least once in our lives, often with serious consequences, according to a National Academy of Medicine analysis. News headlines about outrageous bills, conflicts of interest, and depersonalized care plant more seeds of doubt.