Ever go to a doctor or care provider and kind of slog through the appointment, nodding politely even when you didn’t understand a word being said to you? Or maybe stop by the pharmacy and hand over a prescription you couldn’t read for a medication you couldn’t name? Or how about after a visit to the emergency room or outpatient surgery and having to “guess” what your take-home instructions mean?
How hard can changing a bandage really be? Turns out to be harder than we thought, and with some bad consequences if things go wrong. And things can go very wrong like when you and your doctor have a communication breakdown and your illness does not get diagnosed correctly. Or when your medicines don’t mix and then become toxic.