Clues for the Clueless – Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – I not stupid

And I don’t mean that just because I passed med school. I mean that as in ‘just because you are stupid doesn’t mean I have no common sense’.

It’s my belief that people who don’t lie professionally (e.g. conmen, used-car salesmen, lawyers, doctors) deliberately dumb themselves down when they want to tell a lie because that’s the only way they can convince themselves that people will actually believe them.

You are not the first person to try to fool a doctor and over the years doctors have found ways to tell when someone is lying. I won’t reveal the trade secrets, but sometimes it’s just a matter of common sense.

If you have been quiet waiting outside my consultation room for the past hour but only start coughing when you enter my door, you don’t have a non-stop cough.

If you come into my room with hair all done and full make-up including eye-liner, you did not have headache, blurring of vision, and giddiness so bad that you could not go to work this morning.

If you still have lots of medicine left over from the last visit, you did not take your medicine every day like you were supposed to.

If you have put on 5 kg since the last visit, you have not been exercising AND watching your diet.

I’m not saying I can detect every single lie that’s being told to me, but please try to put in more effort when you want to deceive me. You can be stupid for all you want, but please don’t expect me to play along.

Like all functional relationships, trust and respect are important. When you lie to me, you insult my intelligence and erode my trust in you.

And really, which one of us do you think will suffer more from a dysfunctional patient-doctor relationship?