The value (and danger) of your opinion

As health practitioners, people come to us for advice and guidance.
Our opinion is often considered as “fact” by those seeking our input. Because of this, the responsibility we bear in each interaction is considerable, and must be taken seriously.

The old saying “Dr knows best” is obviously incorrect, because no medical / health practitioner will always know the best or right thing to do, but for the patient who trusts us, our opinion does carry a lot of weight.

The following study demonstrated that of all the information inputs a patient receives about their back pain, it is their chosen health practitioner who has the greatest ability to impact their beliefs and attitudes, which can ultimately determine the longer term outcome of their pain.

With this in mind, what an incredible opportunity we have, to provide direction, purpose and hope to those who come to us for help.
If we consider people with debilitating pain in particular, so often they can feel helpless, stuck and without a solution. We can offer the potential for a way out of that, and that is possible because of the value that the patient places on our opinions.

The weight of opinion also exists in the classroom. While teaching at a course recently, I was having a conversation with a student about the suitability of a particular modality for pregnant patients.
In that conversation, this student explained to me that they had been given advice by another health practitioner and educator who they respected, that was quite negative about the modality in question.
I asked her what this person’s reason was for this, but she was unable to provide one.
Upon further questioning, it became clear that this respected health practitioner’s opinion was based on their own personal bias and lack of understanding of that modality. 
This conversation demonstrated to me that while the opinion of a respected person can be used as a vehicle to move a person toward a more positive outcome, it can also become a wall which prevents someone from moving forward or from seeing something more accurately.

The pitfall which we can very easily find ourselves falling into, is in the providing of an uninformed opinion. This has the potential to not only mislead the listener but may also lead to trust in you being lost if/when your opinion is found to be wrong.
Far better we state that we don’t know the answer, than to give a false answer in the hope of preserving some sort of authority.

Perhaps the most powerful example of opinion in the clinical setting is when we provide a diagnosis. A diagnosis is generally viewed as a fact that is arrived at after a thorough assessment and clinical reasoning process has been completed. Yet we know that so many diagnoses are found to be incorrect, partially correct or more complex than first thought.
Because of this we have an obligation to consider the words we use and the perceived meaning of statements we make, because these will inevitably impact the patient in many and varied ways.
A clinical opinion has the ability to give a patient optimism, conversely it has the ability to take it away.

I’ll say this again… What an incredible opportunity we have, to provide direction, purpose and hope to those who come to see us for help. This is possible because of the trust we have earned and the confidence with which we provide our service.
Let’s keep the weight of our opinion at the forefront of our minds and be thoughtful, intentional and kind in the way that deploy it.