(no subject)

[blairmacg]

Hey, guys, please hear this post in a kindly voice rather than a terse one, because I'm aware how something like this might "sound" if one were so inclined to take it badly.

Please, please, please no longer refer your friends and family to me for wellness advice. For the fifth time in the last year, I've invested time either looking up health information and/or investigating health care providers for folks who claim to be (a) frustrated with current or "mainstream" medical providers and (b) open to non-standard suggestions. In four of the five cases, I've been ignored or brushed off after listing research, potential medical providers, or alternative routes of investigation.

(Note I'm not speaking of or to folks with whom I've already worked AND are reading here.)

I've had a last straw recently. And truly, as much as it's frustrating for people who have far greater financial resources than I do to ask me to provide my time and help and expertise for free, it's equally frustrating to provide those things, then watch the person continue to deteriorate because they're determined to stay with a doctor who won't consider research-based information that falls outside their personal and immediate experience and/or stay with a doctor who it not helping, but whose non-help is covered by insurance.

So... I totally understand the desire to help. But the truth is, in these days of assuming anything outside a hospital model is terrifying quackery, my knowledge, education, experience, and training is considered irrelevant. Thus I'm not the person to step in help strangers.


(I should add that the negativity folks demonstrate is not a result of whether I do or do not have a medical license of some sort. I've watched physicians, pharmacists, and toxicologists with highly advanced degrees and years of experience be ignored because they share knowledge outside the "mainstream." I'm not alone in choosing to pull back on the knowledge-sharing.)

I continue to teach workshops and classes for interested groups, because an interested and invested audience differs greatly from a person who, regardless of pain and suffering, won't listen to anyone but their "nice" doctor. I'll also be publishing a series of wellness books after the first of the year.

But I'm not taking new individual clients, and I'm not providing my services to friends-of-friends and/or strangers for free. I've been figuratively smacked at far too many times to willingly continue. I'm no longer willing to be brushed off by people who think their two or three years of education trumps almost twenty years of experience, and totally not willing to waste the time of others' patients who, while in desperate need of help, are equally desperate to get their solution from their existing doctor rather than an outsider.

In the meantime, if you know someone who is suffering, I can advise the same course of action I've opted to adopt: be supportive, be kind, be silent unless specifically invited to share knowledge, and be prepared to be ignored.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Ohhh do I hear this. *hugs*

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

Yep.

I stopped seeing clients a couple years ago, but left the door open for referrals via friends and existing clients. Now I'm closing that referral door, too, because offering for free help that usually comes at around $70 an hour shouldn't be recompensed with nastiness and/or complete ignoring. :)

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry this is happening. :(

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

Eh, it is what it is. I was hoping to find a middle ground, but it's better for me if I just... don't. :)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that the wellness books are back in the schedule. :)

Sorry that people being are frustrating.

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the wellness books are back, too. It helps to have a pending contract with a wellness provider, too. :)

As for the people... sigh. I keep trying to help because it feels like I'm being mean otherwise, but... well. You know. :)