Lisa Edelstein Quotes

I'm opposed to anybody getting between me and the patient.

Doctors are wonderful people, but they don't know everything. We're all responsible for our own health, and shouldn't feel guilty if we ask questions or get second opinions.

If you explain to a patient what can be done and what might be the downsides, let the patient choose; don't have ethicists, priests, or doctors say you may or may not have replacement cells.

Value in medicine depends on information - as I said in 'Let Patients Help,' 'People perform better when they're informed better.' It follows that to make patients and families more effective in care, they need to know more.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

We would like doctors to listen, but the fact is, we better be ready to be able to talk to them. You're going to have to be an active participant in that conversation, so I'd say the American people are going to need ways of stepping up to the conversation.

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.

I don't necessarily want my physician making all my decisions.

The paternalism of the medical industry is insane.

I've learnt some important lessons: I never rely on the opinion of one doctor alone. I do my own research; I read up and am ready with questions I need answered.

I think people need to be comfortable questioning the authority of a doctor.

It costs you just as much to ask a doctor 50 questions as it does to ask him one question. So go see your doctor with questions written down... And if he doesn't want to answer your 50 questions, go find yourself another doctor!

If a doctor tells me, 'Hey, that's it, and this is how it is,' and I don't buy that, then I think I have the right to disagree with you.

I always knew I wanted to be a doctor, but I also knew that being a doctor meant more than treating just the patient in front of you.

When you walk into a doctor's office, you've got to have the same attitude you would about anything else. You've got to ask tough questions, and you've got to not be afraid to challenge their credentials.

Be an advocate for your loved ones in the hospital. Ask tough questions of your local hospital and health system about preparedness for the likeliest emergencies, and express your views on how medical resources should be allocated in case they ever fall short.

Effective health care depends on self-care; this fact is currently heralded as if it were a discovery.

We need to and must protect privacy. But I think that people will be willing and even eager to share medical information about themselves for the greater good of mankind.

In addition to having a good partnership with a good doctor, you have to do some of the work yourself. Go online, read about it, and find out what you can tolerate.

Working families need to know that we will work to protect their health needs, promote the development of safe, effective medicines, and guarantee patient rights.

The best doctors and the best hospitals in America, if they cannot get the patient information they need when they need it, it can lead to morbid consequences: Higher mortality.

America's doctors, nurses and medical researchers are the best in the world, but our health care system is broken.

There's a culture inside the NHS that is highly paternalistic. You know, 'We give them the service and they are grateful.' We have to move to shared decision-making.

I'd like to see the health care professionals making decisions, not some bureaucrat in Indianapolis working for an insurance company.

We will empower patients as well as health professionals. We will disempower the hierarchy and bureaucracy.