It’s OK if your doctor says ‘I don’t know’ | Expert Opinion

A patient recently asked for my opinion on whether she should consider a test to evaluate her symptoms and hopefully find a diagnosis. Because I rarely order this specific test, my answer was “I don’t know.”

That’s not where the conversation stopped. I admitted that I didn’t have enough information about the usefulness of the test to give her my opinion at that moment but I promised to do some research after our visit and update her. A few days later, I called the patient and gave her an educated opinion that I now felt comfortable sharing.

But as a primary-care physician who is supposed to know a lot about a lot of topics, I can feel scared to admit when I don’t know something.

For some patients, hearing a doctor say “I don’t know” may be worrisome. Didn’t they have to do all those years of training? Don’t they have to take lots of exams to practice medicine? Yes, and yes. However, medicine is a rapidly evolving field; every month, journals publish novel research and new medications hit the shelves. The coronavirus pandemic is a perfect, albeit very dramatic, example of the constant evolution of medicine. What we know can sometimes change from one day to the next.

That’s why knowing what you don’t know is crucial, especially in medicine.

In admitting to not having an answer, your doctor is showing humility. It might be easier and quicker to pretend to know something, but that’s not giving a patient the care and respect that are deserved. Ask your doctor to do some research and get back to you with an opinion. Make sure the doctor follows up with you. Giving your physician a chance to become educated means a more thoughtful and nuanced answer than you might have gotten in a brief patient encounter.

My patient wanted my honest opinion on a topic I didn’t know enough about. In telling her “I don’t know,” I worried I might disappoint her. However, I like to think that this admission helps build trust, an essential foundation for any successful partnership. My patients should trust that I will not recommend a treatment if I don’t know enough about it, that I will tell them if I think they would benefit from another physician’s opinion, that I won’t order a test without making sure we both understand what to do with the results.

Patients look to their doctors to help them navigate the thorny questions that come with sickness and health. If you ask your doctor a question and that doctor admits to not having an answer, trust that this is a positive sign. After all, in acknowledging what they don’t know, doctors can further their knowledge and likely help many more patients.

Amanda Finegold Swain is a family medicine physician who works in the University of Pennsylvania Health System.