cheryl
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Prevent unnecessary medical care — by asking your doctor these 4 questions first - Ted
“Doctor, is this really necessary?”
Oslo neurosurgeon Christer Mjåset, vice president of the Norwegian Medical Association, says that he experienced a jolt when a woman asked him this question, he recalls in a TEDxOslo talk. It was a first in his career — he’d never had a patient say this to him.
It occurred after Mjåset suggested spinal surgery to her; she was troubled by intense pain caused by a herniated cervical disc. While he’d performed this procedure many times before, it did come with risks — with paralysis from the neck down being one of the most serious. This led the patient to ask: “Doctor, is this really necessary?”
“You know what I realized right there and then?” Mjåset says. “It was not.”
“Doctor, is this really necessary?”
Oslo neurosurgeon Christer Mjåset, vice president of the Norwegian Medical Association, says that he experienced a jolt when a woman asked him this question, he recalls in a TEDxOslo talk. It was a first in his career — he’d never had a patient say this to him.
It occurred after Mjåset suggested spinal surgery to her; she was troubled by intense pain caused by a herniated cervical disc. While he’d performed this procedure many times before, it did come with risks — with paralysis from the neck down being one of the most serious. This led the patient to ask: “Doctor, is this really necessary?”
“You know what I realized right there and then?” Mjåset says. “It was not.”