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But I did expect my patients to benefit from the additional level of expertise that the specialists could offer. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. I guess it was too much to ask at the time, because not a single one of my patients was offered anything more than a “Don’t worry, you’re fine” opinion. No biopsy, nothing. It was a fruitless and frustrating 48 Interventions exercise. But once I discovered that my own hospital’s radiologists had begun doing liver biopsies, I became their first best customer.

If not, then it is simply not needed. Persuading my own patients to have a liver biopsy can be a challenging task. I don’t blame them for their ambivalence. After all, many have had bad experiences within the medical system, and so it is not an environment they trust. Doctors 41 Healing Hepatitis C sometimes incise drug abscesses without anesthetic to teach addicts a lesson. Pain medications are severely limited or even withheld after big operations because they might lead to addiction. Drug users with painful problems like broken bones are accused of drug-seeking, even though they’re just looking for a little relief.

That is something I believe. I was never trained to interpret liver biopsies. Once I finally recognized the gigantic hepatitis C problem I had on my hands, I began referring patients to local gastroenterologists for biopsy and hepatitis C treatment. I probably don’t have to convince you that my patients were not exactly welcomed with enthusiasm. In any case that was neither their expectation nor mine. But I did expect my patients to benefit from the additional level of expertise that the specialists could offer.