MD doctor's questions driving you crazy?
Learn what they actually mean.

You go to the MD doctor to get help, not to get interrogated. But that is exactly how you might feel as you get bombarded with stupid sounding questions by the nurses and the MD doctors. It seems like they want to know everything about you, your family, your job and even what you eat or drink. And the most frustrating part is that they seem to ask questions about completely irrelevant matters when you actually go to them with a specific problem.

For example, you go to the MD doctor for knee pain that has been bothering you for many years. You have tried different pain pills in the past with some relief but now it is getting worse day by day. You are starting to have difficulty walking from the parking lot to your office because of the knee pain. You have waited too long. Now, you finally want something done about it. You find time from your busy schedule to visit the MD doctor.

At the MD doctor’s office, they start asking you all sorts of questions. They ask you about your past problems, your job, your parents, your siblings and other similar personal matters. You start to get somewhat irritated and now the MD doctor asks another question.

“How much alcohol do you drink?”

Now, this question just throws you over the edge. You start to think, “Why do they care how much I drink? Do they actually think that my knee pain is because of the few drinks I take on the weekends?” And you will also wonder, “What is it about me that make them think I might have a drinking problem?”

It seems silly and irrelevant to ask you about your alcohol consumption when you are visiting your MD doctor for a knee pain. Well, in fact, all of the other questions may seem silly too but I will use this particular question as an example here. Can you think of any link between alcohol use and knee pain? Well, here is a simple one. If you drink too much, you may stumble and fall. You may injure your knees and have long lasting knee pain from that. But this is not why your MD doctor is asking you about alcohol use when he is evaluating your knee pain. Question about alcohol use is an important part of the general health risk assessment for any medical problem. It helps the MD doctor to plan your diagnosis and treatment. In this case, this information will help the MD doctor in planning your knee surgery.

Knowledge about the amount and frequency of alcohol use by a patient not only helps predict the risk of surgery in that patient but also helps in the planning of post surgical care. If someone is a habitual heavy drinker, she will have a higher risk of complication from the surgery. If that person is admitted to the hospital for a knee surgery, she will be watched closely for any warning signs. She will also be put on certain medications to prevent life threatening seizures that can happen in chronic heavy drinkers after surgery.

If you knew all these facts, you might not have been surprised by the question about alcohol. As strange as it may sound, all the other stupid and irrelevant sounding questions also have very significant and specific roles in the diagnosis and treatment of most medical problems. You can learn about all these questions and their significance in the book.