You're listening to Life Kid from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mary Elstegara.

When I was a kid, I had this idea that doctors were like all-knowing gods.

If you had a problem, you'd go talk to them, and they would for sure know what was wrong and how to fix it.

Then my brother became a doctor.

And the bubble burst.

Okay, hear me out.

It's partly because this is somebody I used to have slap fights with over the remote,

and who once called me from his college dorm asking,

Hey, how do I make a can of soup?

But actually, it's because of the conversations we had as adults.

I would come back from a doctor visit and realize I was confused or had a lot of unanswered questions.

Or I'd be upset because a doctor didn't know what was causing my symptoms.

And he'd say to me, yeah, some doctors aren't that good at their jobs.

Or why don't you see someone with a different specialty?

The biggest shock was when he told me, your doctor might never have an answer.

Maybe there is no clear diagnosis they can give you.

Over time, it was like doctors came down off their pedestal.

And that was a good thing, because it made me more comfortable talking to them.

You know, I think most patients feel that the doctor is all-knowing,

and that in the medical encounter, the relationship, that they are powerless.

Dr. Jennifer Morez is a professor of cardiology at Hofstra Northwell Health

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