Are there questions patients should be asking, or treatment philosophies they should be looking for?
Dr. Krotec: That is perhaps the most difficult one to answer, and I think that this applies not just to medicine but also to education and to life in general. The most important thing patients can look for in a physician is someone willing to spend time and listen to them. You would be amazed at how often, if you actually spend the time to listen to what a patient is saying, they will make a diagnosis for you. The doctors that take the time to listen and to spend the time with patients are the doctors who are going to get to the bottom of things and make accurate diagnoses. They’re going to treat those problems for the patient in the quickest and simplest way possible. In my office, we set one hour aside for a patient’s first appointment, and that’s almost unheard of. So don’t go to an office where they tell you the doctor has 50 appointments a day or they schedule 4 to 8 patients an hour. Ask the office how much time they allot for a visit. An office that devotes time to appointments
