Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don’t See Past the Fat
Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don’t See Past the Fat
By GINA KOLATASEPT. 25, 2016
Photo
Sarah Bramblette, who advocates awareness of lymphedema — arm or leg swelling caused by a problem with the lymphatic system — found that the scale at her doctor’s office could not accommodate her. Credit Ryan Stone for The New York Times
You must lose weight, a doctor told Sarah Bramblette, advising a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet. But Ms. Bramblette had a basic question: How much do I weigh?
The doctor’s scale went up to 350 pounds, and she was heavier than that. If she did not know the number, how would she know if the diet was working?
The doctor had no answer. So Ms. Bramblette, 39, who lived in Ohio at the time, resorted to a solution that made her burn with shame. She drove to a nearby junkyard that had a scale that could weigh her. She was 502 pounds.
One in three Americans is obese, a rate that has been steadily growing for more than two decades, but the health care system — in its attitudes, equipment and common practices — is ill prepared, and its practitioners are often unwilling, to treat the rising population of fat patients.
Continue reading the main story
The difficulties range from scales and scanners, like M.R.I. machines that are not built big enough for very heavy people, to surgeons who categorically refuse to give knee or hip replacements to the obese, to drug doses that have not been calibrated for obese patients. The situation is particularly thorny for the more than 15 million Americans who have extreme obesity — a body mass index of 40 or higher — and face a wide range of health concerns.
Part of the problem, both patients and doctors say, is a reluctance to look beyond a fat person’s weight. Patty Nece, 58, of Alexandria, Va., went to an orthopedist because her hip was aching. She had lost nearly 70 pounds and, although she still had a way to go, was feeling good about herself. Until she saw the doctor.
“He came to the door of the exam room, and I started to tell him my symptoms,” Ms. Nece said. “He said: ‘Let me cut to the chase. You need to lose weight.’”
The doctor, she said, never examined her. But he made a diagnosis, “obesity pain,” and relayed it to her internist. In fact, she later learned, she had progressive scoliosis, a condition not caused by obesity.
Dr. Louis J. Aronne, an obesity specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine, helped found the American Board of Obesity Medicine to address this sort of issue. The goal is to help doctors learn how to treat obesity and serve as a resource for patients seeking doctors who can look past their weight when they have a medical problem.
Dr. Aronne says patients recount stories like Ms. Nece’s to him all the time.
“Our patients say: ‘Nobody has ever treated me like I have a serious problem. They blow it off and tell me to go to Weight Watchers,’” Dr. Aronne said.
“Physicians need better education, and they need a different attitude toward people who have obesity,” he said. “They need to recognize that this is a disease like diabetes or any other disease they are treating people for.”
The issues facing obese people follow them through the medical system, starting with the physical exam.
Research has shown that doctors may spend less time with obese patients and fail to refer them for diagnostic tests. One study asked 122 primary care doctors affiliated with one of three hospitals within the Texas Medical Center in Houston about their attitudes toward obese patients. The doctors “reported that seeing patients was a greater waste of their time the heavier that they were, that physicians would like their jobs less as their patients increased in size, that heavier patients were viewed to be more annoying, and that physicians felt less patience the heavier the patient was,” the researchers wrote.
Lapses in Treatment
Other times, doctors may be unwittingly influenced by unfounded assumptions, attributing symptoms like shortness of breath to the person’s weight without investigating other likely causes.
That happened to a patient who eventually went to see Dr. Scott Kahan, an obesity specialist at Georgetown University. The patient, a 46-year-old woman, suddenly found it almost impossible to walk from her bedroom to her kitchen. Those few steps left her gasping for breath. Frightened, she went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor said she had a lot of weight pressing on her lungs. The only thing wrong with her, the doctor said, was that she was fat.
“I started to cry,” said the woman, who asked not to be named to protect her privacy. “I said: ‘I don’t have a sudden weight pressing on my lungs. I’m really scared. I’m not able to breathe.’”
“That’s the problem with obesity,” she said the doctor told her. “Have you ever considered going on a diet?”
It turned out that the woman had several small blood clots in her lungs, a life-threatening condition, Dr. Kahan said.
For many, the next step in a diagnosis involves a scan, like a CT or M.R.I. But many extremely heavy people cannot fit in the scanners, which, depending on the model, typically have weight limits of 350 to 450 pounds.
Scanners that can handle very heavy people are manufactured, but one national survey found that at least 90 percent of emergency rooms did not have them. Even four in five community hospitals that were deemed bariatric surgery centers of excellence lacked scanners that could handle very heavy people. Yet CT or M.R.I. imaging is needed to evaluate patients with a variety of ailments, including trauma, acute abdominal pain, lung blood clots and strokes.
When an obese patient cannot fit in a scanner, doctors may just give up. Some use X-rays to scan, hoping for the best. Others resort to more extreme measures. Dr. Kahan said another doctor had sent one of his patients to a zoo for a scan. She was so humiliated that she declined requests for an interview.
[...]
Yet for many fat people, the questions about appropriate medical care are beside the point because they stay away from doctors.
“I have avoided going to a doctor at all,” said Sarai Walker, the author of “Dietland,” a novel. “That is very common with fat people. No matter what the problem is, the doctor will blame it on fat and will tell you to lose weight.”
“Do you think I don’t know I am fat?” she added.
Why Do Obese Patients Get Worse Care? Many Doctors Don’t See Past the Fat
By GINA KOLATASEPT. 25, 2016
Photo
Sarah Bramblette, who advocates awareness of lymphedema — arm or leg swelling caused by a problem with the lymphatic system — found that the scale at her doctor’s office could not accommodate her. Credit Ryan Stone for The New York Times
You must lose weight, a doctor told Sarah Bramblette, advising a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet. But Ms. Bramblette had a basic question: How much do I weigh?
The doctor’s scale went up to 350 pounds, and she was heavier than that. If she did not know the number, how would she know if the diet was working?
The doctor had no answer. So Ms. Bramblette, 39, who lived in Ohio at the time, resorted to a solution that made her burn with shame. She drove to a nearby junkyard that had a scale that could weigh her. She was 502 pounds.
One in three Americans is obese, a rate that has been steadily growing for more than two decades, but the health care system — in its attitudes, equipment and common practices — is ill prepared, and its practitioners are often unwilling, to treat the rising population of fat patients.
Continue reading the main story
The difficulties range from scales and scanners, like M.R.I. machines that are not built big enough for very heavy people, to surgeons who categorically refuse to give knee or hip replacements to the obese, to drug doses that have not been calibrated for obese patients. The situation is particularly thorny for the more than 15 million Americans who have extreme obesity — a body mass index of 40 or higher — and face a wide range of health concerns.
Part of the problem, both patients and doctors say, is a reluctance to look beyond a fat person’s weight. Patty Nece, 58, of Alexandria, Va., went to an orthopedist because her hip was aching. She had lost nearly 70 pounds and, although she still had a way to go, was feeling good about herself. Until she saw the doctor.
“He came to the door of the exam room, and I started to tell him my symptoms,” Ms. Nece said. “He said: ‘Let me cut to the chase. You need to lose weight.’”
The doctor, she said, never examined her. But he made a diagnosis, “obesity pain,” and relayed it to her internist. In fact, she later learned, she had progressive scoliosis, a condition not caused by obesity.
Dr. Louis J. Aronne, an obesity specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine, helped found the American Board of Obesity Medicine to address this sort of issue. The goal is to help doctors learn how to treat obesity and serve as a resource for patients seeking doctors who can look past their weight when they have a medical problem.
Dr. Aronne says patients recount stories like Ms. Nece’s to him all the time.
“Our patients say: ‘Nobody has ever treated me like I have a serious problem. They blow it off and tell me to go to Weight Watchers,’” Dr. Aronne said.
“Physicians need better education, and they need a different attitude toward people who have obesity,” he said. “They need to recognize that this is a disease like diabetes or any other disease they are treating people for.”
The issues facing obese people follow them through the medical system, starting with the physical exam.
Research has shown that doctors may spend less time with obese patients and fail to refer them for diagnostic tests. One study asked 122 primary care doctors affiliated with one of three hospitals within the Texas Medical Center in Houston about their attitudes toward obese patients. The doctors “reported that seeing patients was a greater waste of their time the heavier that they were, that physicians would like their jobs less as their patients increased in size, that heavier patients were viewed to be more annoying, and that physicians felt less patience the heavier the patient was,” the researchers wrote.
Lapses in Treatment
Other times, doctors may be unwittingly influenced by unfounded assumptions, attributing symptoms like shortness of breath to the person’s weight without investigating other likely causes.
That happened to a patient who eventually went to see Dr. Scott Kahan, an obesity specialist at Georgetown University. The patient, a 46-year-old woman, suddenly found it almost impossible to walk from her bedroom to her kitchen. Those few steps left her gasping for breath. Frightened, she went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor said she had a lot of weight pressing on her lungs. The only thing wrong with her, the doctor said, was that she was fat.
“I started to cry,” said the woman, who asked not to be named to protect her privacy. “I said: ‘I don’t have a sudden weight pressing on my lungs. I’m really scared. I’m not able to breathe.’”
“That’s the problem with obesity,” she said the doctor told her. “Have you ever considered going on a diet?”
It turned out that the woman had several small blood clots in her lungs, a life-threatening condition, Dr. Kahan said.
For many, the next step in a diagnosis involves a scan, like a CT or M.R.I. But many extremely heavy people cannot fit in the scanners, which, depending on the model, typically have weight limits of 350 to 450 pounds.
Scanners that can handle very heavy people are manufactured, but one national survey found that at least 90 percent of emergency rooms did not have them. Even four in five community hospitals that were deemed bariatric surgery centers of excellence lacked scanners that could handle very heavy people. Yet CT or M.R.I. imaging is needed to evaluate patients with a variety of ailments, including trauma, acute abdominal pain, lung blood clots and strokes.
When an obese patient cannot fit in a scanner, doctors may just give up. Some use X-rays to scan, hoping for the best. Others resort to more extreme measures. Dr. Kahan said another doctor had sent one of his patients to a zoo for a scan. She was so humiliated that she declined requests for an interview.
[...]
Yet for many fat people, the questions about appropriate medical care are beside the point because they stay away from doctors.
“I have avoided going to a doctor at all,” said Sarai Walker, the author of “Dietland,” a novel. “That is very common with fat people. No matter what the problem is, the doctor will blame it on fat and will tell you to lose weight.”
“Do you think I don’t know I am fat?” she added.
