Helping Your Teen Communicate With a Doctor

Good communication with a doctor is vital to a person’s health and can be a challenge in the self-conscious teen years. But you can help your teen in several ways:

1. Urge him/her to be honest with the doctor. Doctors have heard just about everything and aren’t likely to be shocked. Honest answers can be crucial to a correct diagnosis.

2. Tell him/her that a doctor is not a mind-reader. If he wants to talk about something, but finds it difficult, tell the doctor that he may be able to help your teen discuss the concern.

3. Tell your teen that it is his responsibility to ask questions. This can be vital to understanding medical treatment. Patients have a right to clear answers.

4. Help your teen give a good medical history by refreshing his/her memory regarding childhood illnesses, family medical history, immunizations, drug sensitivity and medications.

5. Finally, let him have his own relationship with the doctor, and let his preferences be your guide whether you sit in on the meeting/exam, or allow the doctor and teen to meet privately.

Taking responsibility for one’s own health is a vital step to maturity.

Dr. Wibbelsman, M.D., is an award-winning author and former “Dear Doctor” columnist for Teen magazine. Chair of Adolescent Medicine for the Permanente Medical Group, Northern California, he is chief of the Teen-Age Clinic at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco, and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School. Dr. Wibbelsman is the news anchor for a Bay Area television series, “Medicine in the Nineties”.