Your Life in Their Hands – Where Does the Responsibility Lie?: Exploring the Partnership Between You and Your Doctor – and the Relationship You Have with Yourself

You may wonder why we decided to write this book? We wanted to give you the opportunity to share our experiences and use them to inform your own decisions – it may save your life! How much attention do you give your own health and wellbeing? Are you proactive in your health and wellbeing or do you passively hand the responsibility to others? When you are poorly what is your normal response? Do you take a major role in your recovery or do you hand the whole responsibility over to your GP or Hospital Consultant? Do you accept what they say without question? Do you ask questions, challenge, or explore other possibilities? Of course, there are times when the only sensible thing is to allow doctors to use their skills and experience to simply get on and save your life – dealing with an acute onset of a disease or the aftermath of an accident is often time-critical. But at other times it is really important for each of us to take on the responsibility of managing how we approach the relationship with the medical profession and manage our illness, recuperation and if at all possible our rehabilitation and recovery. Let our stories help you take charge of your health Vicky and Gina xx