![As someone with decades of experience as a physician, I can assure you that whatever your diagnosis, it pays to be an informed patient. Many conditions have a wide range of treatment options, and to make the decision that’s right for you, it’s...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170725185017im_/http://68.media.tumblr.com/70835d16f22785373a7e9ecde3f8e3e2/tumblr_otnrika8r41qckp4qo1_500.jpg)
As someone with decades of experience as a physician, I can assure you that whatever your diagnosis, it pays to be an informed patient. Many conditions have a wide range of treatment options, and to make the decision that’s right for you, it’s important to understand the pros and cons of each. Unfortunately, the general public has a lot of erroneous ideas about the practice of medicine, and to some extent this is due to the popularity of Dr. Mario.
Thanks to this so-called Dr. Mario, many people assume we in the medical field solve every problem we encounter by just lobbing a bunch of pills.
It has certainly distorted the expectations of the patients who walk into my office. Yes, just like Dr. Mario, I wear a white lab coat and a stethoscope, and yes, I too treat illnesses with pills, when appropriate. But the similarities stop there. People feeling sick come to me and ask, “Do I have the red virus? The blue one? Or is it the yellow?” And whatever the answer, they expect me to fling four pills of that color at their germs. I always find myself explaining that just because there’s a “Dr.” before his name doesn’t mean Mario underwent the same rigorous training as the rest of us. Not by a long shot.