Works well with doctors as well. Tell them what is wrong with you, so they'll give you the right treatment without jerking you around and wasting your time.
Yeaaah about that, am I the only one concerned about the state of medicine, i.e. diagnosis? There always seems to be a myriad of symptoms that are common between various diseases/conditions. I honestly don't see how to blindly trust doctors.
inb4 edit: I am not saying we shouldn't trust doctors.
Given that my symptoms matched a host of things and its a 7 to 20 in 100,000 thing that only got caught because a good AE (ER) doc told me to forcefully request an MRI I've learnt which doctors to trust over time.
Also if you have a rare condition don't expect your average doc to know much about it even my specialist (first one) wasn't that up on the latest research (again unsurprising, they are concerned with hundreds of patients, I'm only concerned with one).
Doctors are generally excellent but they are not omniscient and the good ones own it.
The more people are willing to say "I don't know", the higher the likelihood that they are saying what they really believe to be true when they don't.
I'm really hoping some of the people I knew who got into med school will go into research.
Yet I find doctors routinely dispense diagnosis and treatments with very little clarification of their knowledge or certainty on the particular issue at hand. I find they also bristle at efforts for patients to clarify or understand their judgements. I absolutely am NOT the kind of person that wants my doctor to "always convey confidence" even when they are uncertain. I happen to know a thing or two about logical reasoning and diagnostic assessment -- I want the straight truth so I can make the decisions I can.
What is the problem I wonder? As other comment says, I'd love to get a doctor that would just say something like "we don't really know about this one...but we can throw a couple Hail Marys and see what sticks" In some cases that is the most accurate and sensible thing they could say. I sometimes wonder if it is just the doctors I have access to via my regular health insurance. Just like engineers, there must be a distribution of quality among doctors. How do I find the good ones?
And whenever they recommend treatment it's always good to ask "What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we just watch and wait?"
And then you don't do that and spend $1400 in vet bills to find out your bird had a tummy ache. Thanks overly worried girlfriend.
I agree that, in a situation with possible adversarial repercussions (e.g. social services), you should be extra-careful; and in the original post the author's fault was that she did not recognize the self-harming question was such a situation. However, resorting to silence does not seem like a practical way to solve any problem -- it works with the police only because someone else (your lawyer) will do the talking for you.