I was talking with a few friends not long ago. Our conversation somehow got to the issue of authority, and what exactly respect for authority looks like. One of them, trying to make a point, turned to me and asked: “So you surely deal with people who don’t listen to what you have to say. What do you do when your patients don’t take the medications you prescribe?”
I think he was expecting me to be Mr. Furious and lash out against the patients who don’t give proper respect for my authority. Most people have heard how irritated many doctors get when patients are non-compliant. “Well,” I said, hesitating, “I guess I just ask them why they aren’t taking them. There’s got to be a reason for it, and I try to figure out why. It could be that the prescription costs too much; it could be that they are afraid of side effects; it could be that they heard something bad, or have some other bias against the medication for a reason I don’t know; or it could be that they just don’t understand why I think they should be on it in the first place.”
I totally wrecked his point, which made me glad because I didn’t agree with it anyhow.
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