sharing specialists

Lollypop
Lollypop Member Posts: 3 ✭
edited December 2019 in General discussion
Hi.  Just a quick (and silly) question.  Do any of you 'share' the same specialists with an immediate family member and how do you feel about it?
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  • kmakm
    kmakm Member Posts: 7,974 ✭
    I don't, but the laws about medical confidentiality and privacy are well enshrined, very clear and strict. Your doctor should never discuss either of you with the other. However if you feel unable to trust this, it's probably best to get a new specialist. I personally feel it's highly important to be able to trust your team. K xox
  • Lollypop
    Lollypop Member Posts: 3 ✭
    edited December 2019
    I trust my surgeon (I think she's awesome) but I like having my own team looking after me, and I want to be able to go into a room and not worry about what I will say or what the family member has said or will say.  I am disappointed that the family member did not check with me to see if I was comfortable with her asking her GP to be referred to 'my' BS.  I know it sounds silly and perhaps selfish but if it was the other way round, I would have asked not to have the same specialists.
  • Mira
    Mira Member Posts: 678 ✭
    I don't share any cancer specialists with my family but I was in that situation with another specialist years ago.  I was seeing him for 2 years and then my Mum made an appointment to see him without telling me, he actually stopped treatment with me (and her) because it put him in an awkward position.

    Some people just don't understand boundaries.   Though I would guess that surgeons would see so many people that it may not even occur to them that you are related, unless one of you mentions it.
  • jintie
    jintie Member Posts: 114 ✭
    This family member attended my medical appointments with me.  Now she has been diagnosed, she is now seeing this same specialist.  The specialist knows that we are related.  She knows that I am uncomfortable and assures me that things will be kept confidential, but this is not what I’m worried about.  It’s MY team.  The family member could have got her own team.
  • CRM
    CRM Member Posts: 93 ✭
    Most people choose a specialist based on their good reputation or a recommendation. We see physios and dentists and choose our hairdresser based on the knowledge we have from friends and family. If a medical specialist has a good reputation you don't need to ask permission from a friend or family member before you see them. 
  • Afraser
    Afraser Member Posts: 4,440 ✭
    I agree @CRM. It would be really nice if relatives asked if you minded if they contacted the specialist you see and even nicer if they gave the specialist a heads up about the relationship, but in the final analysis your confidence in your specialist is a great bit of advertising so it’s hard to blame someone if they act on it. You have every right to remind your specialist of the confidentiality of your medical relationship or quite specifically raise your concern so he/she knows your position. 
  • arpie
    arpie Member Posts: 8,116 ✭
    edited December 2019
    @Lollypop    It wouldn't worry me if a family member or friend used my surgeon, onc or rad onc - I already have local friends sharing my Onc & Rad Onc & we chat about them now & then .....

    As @CRM says - it is a bit like referring family to your dentist, hairdresser etc - and if they don't like them, they'll move on to another one.  ALways nice to be pointed towards someone who is revered.  (There is one Onc I wouldn't refer anyone to, as I didn't get on with him at all!!)  As I am the first in my family ever to be diagnosed with BC, I had to find my own surgeon - and would be more than happy for others to use him, if they have to, tho I hope they don't need his services, ever!

    I guess it would be polite to mention it to you first tho, to gauge your own reaction ...... not that they should be raising your name at all in any of the conversations with said specialist!!

    All the best for 2020 xx

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