This is all part of being your own advocate. It doesn’t mean that you have to be militant, or obnoxious, or that you should call your doctor in the middle of the night just to chat (please don’t!).
What it does mean, however, is that you have certain rights. If you have a question or problem during office hours, by all means, go ahead and call; you may not always get the doctor, but you’ll get somebody who can help.
And if you have a problem that you don’t think can wait until morning, call at night. Most doctors have 24-hour answering services; many doctors have partners who share “on-call” time—they split it up, each taking a certain number of nights, weekends and holidays a year. They do this because they expect to get some calls at night, because they know from years of training and experience that medical emergencies don’t always happen during office hours.
This won’t be the first phone call your doctor gets in the middle of the night, and it certainly won’t be the last. What would you rather do—wind up in the hospital as a result of a serious complication that should have been treated hours ago, or “bother your doctor?”
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