When and HOW to Get a Second Opinion, Expert Answer from Author of "Critical Conditions - The Essential Hospital Guide"

I received a question from someone through the Contact Us function which was related to getting a second opinion.  In this case it was someone who was recently diagnosed with Grave's Disease (a hyperthyroid condition; Barbara Bush, made it 'famous' or is what a lot of people relate to regarding it).  

So I reached out to an expert on the subject of patient proactivity and health care process, Martine Ehrenclou, author of Critical Conditions: The Essential Hospital Guide and a second book to be released in March of 2012 titled The Take-Charge Patient: How You Can Get the Best Medical Care.  Martine and I share the common 'turf' of doing public outreach and education related to what I call 'patient proactivity', and wish I'd known her two years ago when I was out in her home state of California presenting at a chronic pain conference on essentially the Lumigrate "You Model".  I very much like her term 'take-charge', as it's a recognizable descriptor of what the public will understand, typically.  And in the allpathic system of medicine, the nurses responsible for being in charge had the title 'Charge Nurse'.  Some systems still use these terms or have retitled to be more 'modern' but essentially there is a structure involved with systems that 'being in charge' is the function.  And when it comes to YOU, who else to do it better than YOU? (or your representative/ advocate). 

Essentially, patients and providers are frustrated by the same things and the most powerful thing a patient can do to get the best care from their provider is to let the provider know they're 'on top of' their health care.  Bring a notebook, bring them resources to share (there's a Print button here if you find something you'd like to share with someone, that's because Lumigrate's been set up to encourage and empower people to become the educators to providers or others)

I'm sure Martine agrees with me in commending the medical consumer/patient who asked the question for being proactive and asking our opinion! So kudos, and I thank you for setting such a GRATE example. And I trust the answers provided are of help to YOU and to all that will learn from seeing it here in the future.  Thanks to Martine for the time in responding here as well; we're all in this together and the more good 'rowers' we have on the oars of Lumigrate, the better the boat floats and cruises to help people.  We're in this together!  

~~ Mardy