Negotiating Your Own Treatment: Doctors Visiting Doctors

When Doctors Need Doctors: The Awkward Art of Crossing Specialties

There comes a time in almost every doctor's life when the inevitable happens: you have to consult another doctor. In another specialty. For yourself. Suddenly, you go from being the authority in the white coat to being the reluctant, overthinking, semi-cooperative patient sitting on the exam table. And honestly? It feels weird for everyone involved.

Let's be real—doctors are probably the worst patients. We second-guess, self-diagnose, over-analyze, and treat medical advice like it's a conversation starter rather than a directive. The doctor-patient relationship is delicate at the best of times, but throw two medical degrees into the room and watch the polite chaos unfold.

When Worlds Collide: A Specialist vs Specialist Encounter

The moment you sit across from a colleague in a different specialty, something unspoken hovers in the air. It's a subtle mixture of professional respect, personal vulnerability, and a not-so-small helping of "I know some things too, you know."

Both sides immediately start a silent negotiation:

• The patient-doctor thinks, "I know enough not to be patronized."
• The treating-doctor thinks, "I know you're going to challenge me, aren't you?"

In other words, it's a clinical standoff dressed up as a friendly consultation.

Why It Feels So Unnatural

Normally, patients come to you looking for guidance, reassurance, and expertise. When you're the patient, you're used to being the lighthouse, not the ship lost at sea. Surrendering control—especially over your own body—goes against years of training to be decisive, diagnostic, and directive.

There's also an underlying fear: what if the other doctor misses something? Or worse, what if you miss something about your own case? You can't help but silently critique every question they ask, every test they suggest, every pause they take to think.

And if you're honest, you're also just a little bit embarrassed to admit you don't have all the answers.

The Dance of Mutual Expertise (a.k.a. the Subtle Battle)

Unlike the classic patient-doctor setup where asymmetry defines the dynamic, here it's all about negotiating expertise:

• You might say, "I read about this new protocol..."
• They might answer, "Yes, but in practice, we find it doesn't work well for cases like yours."
• You might follow with, "But I saw a meta-analysis last month..."
• They might politely nod and still prescribe what they intended all along.

It's a polite, professional dance, each step balanced carefully between not wanting to offend and not wanting to seem ignorant.

Negotiating the Treatment Plan Like a Business Deal

When you treat regular patients, they usually nod at your plan, pick up their prescription, and move on. When the patient is a fellow doctor, the treatment plan turns into an open negotiation:

• "Do I really need the full course of antibiotics?"
• "Is the surgery absolutely necessary, or could we try a conservative approach?"
• "Can't I monitor this at home for a bit longer?"
• "Let's agree on a trial of therapy for two weeks and then reassess."

It's not refusal—it's strategic questioning, often sprinkled with citations from the latest literature, personal experience with similar cases, and a charming (but frustrating) level of clinical skepticism.

At this point, the treating doctor must master the rare art of being both authoritative and flexible—a blend most are never taught in medical school.

Why Both Doctors Secretly Think They Know Better

Medical training instills a strong sense of cognitive ownership over disease processes. You’re taught to think critically, challenge assumptions, and maintain a healthy distrust of easy answers. So when you're the one sitting on the paper-lined exam bed, those instincts don't just vanish.

Both the patient-doctor and the treating-doctor secretly believe they have a better grasp of what's happening:

• "If I were on the other side of the desk, I'd manage this differently."
• "If they had trained in my specialty, they'd understand my perspective better."

Each believes that their domain-specific knowledge gives them a unique lens through which the problem should be viewed—and frankly, sometimes they're both right. Which only complicates things further.

When Trust Battles Knowledge

In most normal doctor-patient encounters, trust outweighs knowledge. Patients don’t usually argue because they don't have the knowledge to contest the plan. But when doctors treat doctors, knowledge and trust battle it out like gladiators in an arena.

You trust your colleague—you really do. But knowledge, your lifelong companion, whispers, "Double-check everything. You know enough to catch mistakes."

So you leave the appointment clutching your prescription or discharge instructions in one hand—and your own second opinion in the other.

Medicine by Committee: The After-Visit Saga

Another unique feature of doctor-on-doctor consultations is that the "visit" doesn’t end when you leave the clinic. Oh no. It continues via:

• Private reading of journal articles to verify recommendations.
• Text messages to specialist friends: "Hey, do you agree with what they prescribed?"
• Internal debates: "Should I really start that medication, or should I wait it out?"
• Secret second consultations: "Just to confirm..."

Sometimes, follow-up looks more like an academic case review than a standard check-up. It's an ongoing dialogue between your patient-self and your doctor-self, peppered with late-night Googling and casual literature dives into PubMed.

Prescriptions with Side Orders of Skepticism

Receiving a prescription as a doctor-patient feels less like a medical order and more like a suggestion. Doctors don’t just fill prescriptions. They weigh them, question them, sometimes adjust them.

You may find yourself thinking:

• "Do I really need the full 8-week course, or could 4 suffice?"
• "Maybe I’ll adjust the dosage myself based on how I feel."
• "I'll start it next week... after I double-check the new guidelines."

And should any side effect emerge, you immediately start your own differential diagnosis instead of just calling your doctor like a normal human being.

The Power Struggle of Follow-Up Visits

Normal patients either dread follow-up visits or obediently attend them. Doctor-patients? They turn follow-up into strategic debates:

• "I think I improved faster than expected. Maybe we can skip the imaging?"
• "Given my baseline labs, could we reassess sooner?"

Every follow-up becomes a potential peer-review session disguised as medical care.

And let’s not forget the silent internal monologue at every stage:

• Walking into the clinic: Act normal. Don’t correct them.
• During the consult: Smile and nod. Don't jump ahead.
• Leaving the appointment: Should I follow their plan or modify it slightly?

The Unspoken Code: Respect and Reluctance

Despite the negotiation, the skepticism, and the second-guessing, there's usually a core of mutual respect. No matter how much you think you know, deep down you acknowledge that you are not the specialist here.

You wouldn't appreciate a cardiologist telling you how to manage a skin infection. So you (mostly) resist the urge to micromanage your treatment.

In these moments, you’re reminded of a universal truth: every doctor, no matter how brilliant, needs another doctor sometimes.

And even if it feels weird, even if it involves negotiation, and even if it tickles the ego uncomfortably, that's exactly how it should be.