Having Trust Issues

There are three people in this world that demand automatic trust: your barber, your mechanic, and your doctor. Not having the skills to perform these tasks on our own, we put all of our faith in these three professions. As far back as I can remember, I was afraid that the barber was going to chop my ear off. No joke. I couldn’t care less about how the hair came out as long as I didn’t look like Evander Holyfield by the end of the appointment. To this day, I always tense up when the barber goes near my ear with his scissors.

Worse yet is bringing your car to the shop and waiting for your mechanics prognosis. Although I can’t say I truly trust my mechanic, I have no choice but to give him the keys. I can barely open the hood of my car, let alone change the oil. And since we visit the shop bi-weekly (honestly, our two biggest costs are my health and our car. I am still not sure which one is sicker), I have no choice but to trust my mechanic.

Above and beyond this is the trust we put in our health care providers. Doctors possess a skill that is unparalleled, holding our lives in their hands. We ask and expect our doctors to be infallible: to listen to our complaints, to safeguard our information, to diagnose the disease, and to do it all with a smile. Some people are more open with their doctors than they are with friends or family members. Our doctors see us in our most vulnerable positions and at our happiest times. Trust cements this relationship and our health.

What happens, then, when this trust is broken? What happens when our doctors screw up? In terms of our health, any error is unacceptable and yet doctors are not like the Pope, mistakes are made. We can feel broken both physically and emotionally once this trust is broken and unsure where to turn. One option, which unfortunately seems to be popular, is to file a lawsuit. When Beth Israel North ruined my care years ago, we could have sued the hospital. But ultimately that solution doesn’t bring back your trust in the health care system. For someone like me who has had to place so much belief and expectations in their doctors, getting money and retribution just don’t seem that important. And so, in the end, we decided to leave the hospital and put our trust in Columbia Presbyterian, where I have been ever since.

I recently read a research article that affected my trust not only in my doctors but the entire health care industry. After years of research at the Mayo Clinic, doctors found that a certain medicine used to treat Primary Schlerosing Cholangitis was not helpful. Prior to my upgrade, I had been on this medicine for 12 years. Countless doctors either personally prescribed or said nothing as I ingested this medicine for years. In all honesty, though, that doesn’t bother me. There is no known cure for PSC and I’m sure my doctors were trying anything, even something that turned out to be pointless, to try to help me. What bothers me about this particular case is that no one bothered to tell me about the research article once it came out. Of course, this is only one article and perhaps there are several more which say otherwise. Either way, I should have a right to know that my meds might not work, and ultimately decide whether the benefits out way the risks. It’s not easy to gain someone’s trust. Sometimes we have no choice, like with our barber or mechanic, and we have to put our faith in their hands. Once that trust is harmed, the relationship can be irrevocably broken. It’s tough to lose trust in someone and we’ll see if it’s harder to gain it back.