Endocrine (thyroid, adrenal, pancreas, gonads, etc.) patients know one thing for certain: Getting good medical care can be a big-time challenge. It requires the patience of Job and persistence of a bill collector.

Knowing what’s going on “behind the scenes,” as some put it, helps to determine whether or not to stay with a doctor and, if we stay, how to get the best results. This article offers a peek into one reason for the difficulties of getting good medical care.

Why is it so hard to get, for instance, your thyroid problem treated so you feel human again?

First, let’s recognize that some doctors don’t care-either about you or about your problems. They read a book, and they’re going to go by that book. If what they read in the book doesn’t fix your so-called problem, then you’re a difficult patient who refuses to conform-to the book.

You’d think after even a few years of one non-conforming patient after another, they’d catch a clue that perhaps the book has it wrong, but no. They know what they know, and that’s that.

No imagination. No curiosity. Just a misplaced conviction that somehow or another, the rubber-stamp medicine of the book will start to work. Right. Probably about the same time people get over the notion the world is round.

Fortunately, this description doesn’t represent the majority of doctors, although endocrinologists seem to be over represented in this unhappy gathering.

Unfortunately, the problem is growing. Big Pharma’s control of med. schools and some state medical boards enforces their notion of medicine by the numbers, not by the patient. These limits force even good doctors into mediocrity.

Whatever the reason your doctor won’t or can’t take care of business, as a patient, you have two choices: Stay, with the continuing misery that staying entails, or leave to seek another doctor. Thinking anything you say or do will change the doctor’s attitude is about the same as believing it’s possible to shape concrete after it’s already set.

And know this: When a doctor takes a condescending, my-way-or-the-highway approach, it’s not about you. It’s all about the doctor.

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