What do we pay doctors to do?

Use medical instruments to collect data? Record that data in our charts? Perform procedures? Prescribe medications? Give referrals to other medical specialists? Recommend home care remedies and strategies?

Have I forgotten anything?

The author of a new memoir would say YES!

Kurt Eichenwald has written an astounding memoir, published last year, about his lifelong struggles with epilepsy . . . and people. He tells a story that made me cringe and kept me riveted. I was especially intrigued because his story has so many similarities to my own.

I do not suffer from epilepsy. I have not suffered from drug side effects to the extent that Eichenwald has. But I have suffered from debilitating medical issues. I have also suffered from drug side effects. And I have suffered, like Eichenwald, from the missteps, overconfidence, and occasional outright hostility of other people, while I was trying to attain the medical care I needed.

Perhaps one day I will write my story. But I’m not sure I have much to express that Eichenwald hasn’t already brilliantly covered in A Mind Unraveled.

Experiencing a health problem is scary. Full of fears and anxieties, we turn to doctors for their expertise; and we believe what they tell us. We want to believe; we feel that we have no choice but to believe. But Eichenwald tells a horrific story of doctor after doctor failing him. He was misdiagnosed, multiple times. He was treated with condescension and disrespect, multiple times. He was prescribed medications that almost killed him, multiple times. He was wrongly informed that his seizures were not epilepsy, but a psychological disorder, multiple times.

Finally, after years of worsening epileptic seizures, and years of taking seriously high doses of medication without proper physician monitoring; after years of not knowing where he would wake up next, or with what debilitating injuries; after years of enduring discrimination for having a disability, and personal trauma and that almost resulted in him giving up on life entirely—he finally stumbled upon a doctor who was willing and able to help him. Here’s what happened during Eichenwald’s first consultation with Dr. Naarden:

“After twenty minutes, Naarden had already spent more time speaking with me than any other neurologist ever had.”

What?! No other neurologist had spent more than a total of twenty minutes talking with their patient about a serious, debilitating medical problem?

During that first visit, Dr. Naarden went on to speak with Eichenwald for much longer than twenty minutes. And he continued talking with his patient. He talked with him not just during the initial consultation, but during future visits. And this communication went both ways. The doctor listened very carefully to Eichenwald’s story and asked follow-up questions. He also told Eichenwald, in detail, what he knew about Eichenwald’s current medical situation, what he didn’t know about it, and what he would like to do in an attempt to learn more.

This communication was essential to a correct diagnosis of Eichenwald’s disorder. It was also essential to the series of careful, logical steps the doctor had to take to get Eichenwald’s epilepsy under better control, as well as to prevent high levels of drugs from further damaging the patient’s health. Finally, it was essential in instilling a sense of trust in Eichenwald, who by then had understandably given up on trusting any doctor, and was hesitant to do anything one advised him to do.

When a doctor talks with a patient about a medical issue, this is not wasted time. This is an integral part of the data-gathering process. Anecdotal information from the patient is equally as valuable as measurements obtained from diagnostic tests. When a doctor does not gather information from a patient, key pieces of the puzzle go missing. The doctor is then forced to jump to conclusions.

I was shocked that no other doctor had spent time talking with Eichenwald . . . but I was not surprised. The same thing happened to me. After encountering a series of doctors who misdiagnosed me and gave me wrong treatments and advice, which significantly worsened my problems, I finally stumbled upon one who was willing and able to help me.

How long had each of the unsuccessful doctors spent speaking with me about my health issues, total?

Yep, less than twenty minutes.

How long did the successful doctor spend speaking with me—during my initial consultation alone!—about my health issues?

Yep, more than twenty minutes.

So, what do we pay doctors to do?

The following is a true story about if vs whether grammar pitfalls that can happen in business communications.

The First Email

A few weeks ago, one of the leaders of the company I work for sent all employees an email announcing an upcoming company event and listing possible dates on which it might be held. The leader also wrote this:

“Please let me know if you have any known conflicts.”

This sentence, being an “if statement,” is equivalent to the following:

This type of statement expresses a logical condition. If this, then that. Conditional statements say nothing about instances in which the condition is false, only about instances in which the condition is true.

I checked my calendar and ascertained that I did not have any known conflicts. Thus—according to the grammar of the sentence—the rest of the statement (about letting the leader know) did not apply. I figured that the leader did not want an inbox full of emails saying “I have no known conflicts.” The leader wanted to know only about cases in which there were conflicts, thus avoiding superfluous emails.

So I did not reply. I wasn’t—I swear!—just pretending not to understand the sentence, to prove what an awesomely fastidious grammar queen I am. I really thought I was doing what was wanted of me.

The Second Email

A week later, the leader sent out a second email:

“Just a reminder that we would like to know if you have any known conflicts. . . . If you’ve already replied – thanks and no need to send again.”

Like the sentence in the first email, these sentences, grammatically, indicate conditions:

I did not have any known conflicts, so the rest of the first sentence did not apply to me. I also had not already replied, so the rest of the second sentence did not apply to me, either. Strictly speaking, then, there was no need to reply.

Analysis: Should the Leader Have Used If or Whether?

However, being the twenty-first-century English speaker that I am, I know that the word if is commonly colloquially used in place of the word whether. Unlike if, which indicates that there is a condition with only one option (only one “then” to follow the “if”), whether indicates that there are two options (and does not indicate a condition).

If the leader had, in fact, mistakenly used if instead of whether, the sentence in the first email would be equivalent to this:

This statement is not conditional, and it indicates two options. No matter which instance is true—whether I have any known conflicts or don’t have any known conflicts—I should let the leader know.

The second email is trickier. If the leader had mistakenly used if instead of whether in both sentences, we would get this:

The first statement expresses the same thing as in the first email when if was changed to whether (i.e., I should reply no matter what). The second statement does not make sense. If you have not already replied, it is not possible to do so again. This statement doesn’t make sense because the leader was expressing a condition, and so if was, indeed, the correct word choice. To avoid confusion, whether technically should have been chosen in the other two sentences—that is, if the leader did not intend to express a condition, but rather two options.

That was the conclusion I came to, anyway, upon receiving the second email. So I replied. I guess that was an appropriate response, since the leader wrote back to me with “Thank you!”

Note for the Record

I did not, while reading the emails and deciding whether to respond, have intricate thoughts about conditional statements, two options, and so on; my thoughts and actions happened more organically than that. It was only in writing this blog post that I was able to piece together the exact grammatical reasoning behind my comprehension (or lack thereof!) of the emails.

A Little If vs Whether Grammar Quiz

Here’s a little if vs whether grammar quiz. In the following grammatically correct sentence, what is the conditional statement? What is the statement that is not conditional and indicates two options?

My phone rang, and “The Inquisitive One” appeared on the screen.

“Hey you!” I said, upon answering.

“Hey Liza!” said the inquisitive one. “I’m calling because I’m concerned about something, and I want to discuss it with you. Do you know?—people keep saying you and I are the same person!”

“Oh, well, it happens,” I said. “Honestly, I’m flattered when they think that.”

“Well, I’m not. Plus, it bothers me. It’s as if they think I don’t exist!”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve explained to several people that you and I are different. Hopefully word will get around!”

“Thanks, Liza! But why do people sometimes think we’re the same person?”

“Hmm. I guess I learned that in college. None of the characters in a work of fiction should be confused with the author. Not even when there’s a narrator using the word I to describe him- or herself. And not even when it’s an autobiographical story with a protagonist with many similarities to the author.”

“Oh yeah—I learned that in college, too! So, when the author Tim O’Brien uses the word I in the short story collection The Things They Carried, these narrators should not be confused with O’Brien himself, even though the narrators experience many of the same things O’Brien did during and after the Vietnam War!”

“And the character Ivan Denisovich experiences many of the same things the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did when he was imprisoned in a Soviet gulag, but not everything mentioned in the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich matches Solzhenitsyn’s actual history and memories!”

“And when the foreword to the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux details evidence that the opera ghost really existed, this claim is not being made by Leroux, but by the fictional narrator!”

“Actually,” I observed, “that one’s a bit more complicated.”

“In any case,” said the inquisitive one, “please continue spreading the word. I really—”

“Hold on a sec,” I said, staring out the window at a flying saucer coming to a gentle landing on my front lawn. As I kept watching, the door slid open.

“Oh my gosh!” I cried out. “Three little green aliens are walking on my lawn!”

“What?” said the inquisitive one. “Wait, that’s super interesting to me, because—”

“I’ll call you back,” I said, hung up my phone, and ran outside.

“Take us to your leader!” said the little green aliens.

“Okay,” I said, “but I don’t know where Lady Gaga lives!”

“Take us to your leader!” said the little green aliens.

“Okay, follow me,” I cried, hopping into my car and thinking like crazy and realizing—

But that’s another story.

I would like to discuss with you a modern problem, one that has the potential to strain relationships, upset family members, destroy old friendships, prevent new friendships, and restrict opportunities of all kinds. All this, you say? Yes, the potential for all this, I say. What is this potentially destructive modern problem? you ask. Let me explain through a story, I explain:

I had gone on a few dates with a sweet, athletic, intelligent, family-oriented, and career-minded man. Wishing to communicate something important to him, I made the regrettable—for more than one reason—decision to do so through text messaging. I am a woman of the modern era; that’s my excuse. Well, and I may also be a rotten and thoughtless person. In any case, he called me the next day.

For twenty excruciating minutes, he beat around the bush. He wanted to talk about anything and everything, except for the content of my text. Meanwhile I, trying to go with the flow, did not intervene, but rather answered his questions briefly and without emotion (see: rotten and thoughtless person, above). Finally, he said, “Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re in the mood to talk tonight.”

“Um,” I blurted out, “don’t you want to talk about my text?!”

(By this point, you’ve probably guessed where this story is going. . . .)

“What text?” he said.

He had not received the text! Caught off guard, I proceeded to completely bungle an oral explanation of what I had written, communicating in the most uncomprehensible English my convoluted point of view; and things ended badly.

In addition to having experienced outbound texting failures, I have also been on the non-receiving end of things. In the past year, I have failed to receive text messages from my mother, my psychotherapist, and my housemate. That last was an especially interesting case, since it was a group text, and the other recipient got it just fine.

Having felt frustrated by this problem for months, I finally found the time to scamper off to the Internet. There, I discovered that many others are having this issue. And then I discovered that my phone service provider offers a text messaging app that can be installed on multiple devices (in my case, phone and laptop) and that, people claimed, solved the problem for them.

The setup of these apps went uncommonly smoothly. And now—whoa!—I can text from my laptop, not just my phone. This is an exciting development, as it means I don’t have to interrupt the flow of my work at the keyboard if I want to shoot off a quick text, or read an incoming text. Moreover, if my phone breaks or goes missing, I can still access my text messages.

Something else interesting occurred when I installed the apps. The missing text from my housemate appeared, in proper sequence, on my laptop’s app! . . . though it is still missing on my phone’s app. Such a mystery!

How many friendships around the world have been damaged, or prevented from flowering, due to missed texts? How many business opportunities have fallen through? How many mothers have sighed, thinking their children were remiss in sending love, when actually they were not? What countless words would Charles Dickens pen about this tragedy, were he alive today?

Have you ever missed an important text? Have you ever sent one that never made it out of the ether and onto the intended recipient’s phone?

The inquisitive one was expecting a message. Surely the message would arrive today.

Most likely, the message would come via email or text. It was possible that it would come through Facebook or Twitter. WhatsApp was a distinct possibility. Then again, it could be an actual phone call. It could conceivably come through TrilliSilli, DeAppinessApp, or Appavader Rex—though these channels were less likely.

The inquisitive one had put the mobile device on the counter and started to cook something when the doorbell rang. But the garlic was about to burn, plus the water started boiling over from the other pan, and then the smoke detector started blaring. The inquisitive one removed the pans from heat, fanned off the smoke alarm with a towel, and opened the door—but no one was there.

Upon shutting the door, the inquisitive one returned to the kitchen and checked the mobile device. “No new messages!” the mobile device told the inquisitive one—though not out loud. No: the mobile device was silent.

Once all the food was cooked and put away, the inquisitive one went on a run. The inquisitive one had entered and emerged from the woods and was heading toward home when a car pulled up and rolled down its window.

“Hey, guess what?” shouted the person in the car.

The inquisitive one stopped running and stood there, panting and staring.

“I thought you were someone else,” said the person, and drove away with a squeal.

The inquisitive one resumed running, though somewhat slower than before. Upon arriving home, the inquisitive one looked at the mobile device. “You are unworthy!” shouted the mobile device—though not out loud. No: the mobile device was practicing noise neglect.

The inquisitive one put the phone on the counter next to the bathroom sink, stripped off the sweaty clothes, and got in the shower. A moth was flying around, avoiding the stream of warm water. When the moth landed on a nearby wall tile, the inquisitive one smooshed it.

At that moment, as if the inquisitive one had pushed a button—the mobile device spoke aloud!!

But . . . was it electronic singing, or, since water was rushing so loudly around the inquisitive one’s ears, was it imagination?

The inquisitive one picked up the bar of soap, fantasizing about scrolling.