Dr. John Pagel’s Top Tips for Preparing for Your CLL Telemedicine Visit
Dr. John Pagel’s Top Tips for Preparing for Your CLL Telemedicine Visit from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
For chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients, telemedicine has emerged as an option that requires new ways of working with their health team. Watch as CLL expert Dr. John Pagel shares his advice to patients and caregivers for getting the most out of telemedicine visits.
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Transcript:
Stephanie Chuang:
You had mentioned, patients need to be prepared when they come to their telemedicine visits, doctors have limited time, of course. So what are your top three tips or so for patients and their caregivers who are preparing for their telemedicine visit?
Dr. John Pagel:
So here’s a good important thing to say around that. Number one, you know, what happens is you’ll get told you have a telemedicine visit at 10:00 AM on Tuesday. And so you’re looking forward to 10:00 AM on Tuesday. And 10:00 AM comes around, and you’re waiting by the phone, and it doesn’t ring immediately, or the Zoom doesn’t come up immediately, please understand you have to be a little bit flexible with your physician. Just because it says that time…it’s the same thing kind of like in the clinic, it all kind of flows and works together. And so please be flexible and be patient. Not accepting excessive delays, that’s not really cool, we get that, but it’s often very hard to be right on the dot at 10:00 AM. So number one, be flexible. Number two, have your questions written out or focused about what you want to learn and understand that visit. It may not be a lot different than the last visit, that’s okay. But if you don’t have those, often, what will happen is that when the visit’s over the phone is hang up or the Zoom call is put away, you’ll remember, “Oh, I forgot to ask X, Y, or Z.” don’t let that happen.
And the way you don’t let that happen is to be focused there with what you want to learn. And then lastly, if it’s possible, don’t be excessive. Meaning that, focus on the things that are important, meaningful, relevant to what’s happening to your health, your disease in your interaction with your physician. There are things that we all can list that could be very, very long in the list, but many of them aren’t going to be something that the physician can get to in a very meaningful, important way. Ask though, if you can’t get to those things that are important, that you try and follow up with them very quickly, perhaps in another visit relatively soon. But keep your expectations, if you could, to a very realistic approach, directed and focused on taking care of you and managing your CLL.
