Ask for an hour and tell your doctor you need more time because you are a runner. That’s what we’re talking about today Doc On The Run Podcast.
Now, what would happen if you did this? If you went into your doctor’s office and you just said, “Hey, look, I’m a runner. My situation’s complicated. I really want to train. I really want to get back to running. So I would just like you to take an hour, sit down with me and let’s really work through this so that I can get back to training.” What do you think would happen? In fact, right now when you hear that idea, the idea of going into your doctor’s office and asking for a full hour, or even calling the office in advance and saying you have a complicated situation and you’d like an hour of the doctor’s time, how does that make you feel?
What do you think the doctor would do? If you really confronted the doctor and said, I’d like an hour of time and I think I deserve it because I need it because so far you haven’t been able to figure out my situation with these short visits. What do you think the doctor would do? Squirm? Roll her eyes? Maybe run out of the room? I mean, what do you think would happen?
The really crazy part here is, if you think about it, the podcast episode that you’re listening to right now, Well, this is probably about the same amount of time as your very last doctor’s visit. I mean, how crazy is that? I always schedule 60 minutes for any second opinion call with a runner, whether that’s a webcam visit, if it’s a consultation call, it’s always an hour. And I do that because if seven-minute visits, 10 minute visits or 15 minute office visits with your doctor, were actually working, you wouldn’t be thinking about calling for me.
It’s not that I know so much more about running injuries than your doctor, that just seven minutes with me would give you all the answers you needed that you didn’t get from your doctor in seven minutes. It’s that I actually take the time to go through all of the details related to how you’ve done with all the treatments so far, and all the pieces that you’re missing in terms of the things that are actually making it more difficult for you to get back to running. Well, we go over all those, but it takes time. You just can’t do that in those really short visits. It’s not possible. So although it may make your doctor a little bit uncomfortable, you should ask for more time. And maybe you don’t feel comfortable enough to ask for a full hour, but you’ve got to ask for more time.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Every doctor in the office actually does have more time than you may think, and they take it when they need it. Well, let’s say your doctor sees a patient who comes in who has an infected ingrown toenail. Okay, well, that’s not going to be just a couple of minutes. They’re going to have to do some stuff, right? They might have to do a minor surgical procedure. You think they’re not going to take the time for that? Of course, they are. What if you bring your kid into the doctor and your kid has a broken foot? You think they’re going to say, “Well, it’s Tuesday. It’s really busy today. So why don’t you come back next Thursday and we’ll put on a cast then?” No, they take the time to do it. What if you come in and you have a funny looking spot on your foot that might be melanoma. You think the doctor’s going to say, :This could be cancer. It could kill you. Let’s have you back in a month that will take a biopsy.” No, they’re going to stop everything and they’re going to do what’s necessary.
Now, the reality is that most doctors don’t think of your desire to get back to running as critical as cancer or a broken foot or an infection. But it is important and it is critical to you, and it is reasonable to ask for more time if you’re not actually getting the answers you need because you’ve got to get those answers. So when you think about this, if you know the doctor has more time and you can even in a little less confrontational way get the doctor to take more time with you, you will get better answers. So you really need to think about this. You got to figure out how to get more time, how to get better answers, so that you can get back to running faster.
If you want your questions answered by me, I don’t do consultations just as a quick, “Hey, can you tell me what I should do if I have perineal tendonitis or a split tear in the Achilles tendon?” No, I don’t do two second consultations like that anymore than I think you should expect them from your doctor. But I do question and answer things all the time live, particularly when I do live masterclass sessions, which you can see online for free. The way that you can find out about those that I do over Zoom or that I do live on the web, well, all you have to do is sign up to get notified and you’ll get a notification in your email that says when I’m going to do them so that you can sign up.
Those things are not just routinely posted on the website, but you can get it for free and you can get access to them if you go to docontherun.com/signmeup and when you do that, when you sign up, I will send you notifications when these episodes come out. But I will also send you notifications for all of the live masterclasses so that you can take a deep dive into the particular condition that’s bothering you and the particular topic that might be most relevant for you when you have an injury and you’re trying to get back to running as quickly as possible. So go to doconrun.com/signmeup and I’ll see you in the next training.
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