BY HANS DUVEFELT

A lot of people don’t know much about how the body works. One of my jobs as a physician is to explain how things work in order to empower my patient to choose how to deal with it when the body isn’t working right.

On my blog I have written about this many times, for example in the 2010 post GUY TALK:

Guy Talk

One of the first challenges I faced as a foreign doctor from an urban background practicing in a small town in this country was finding the right way to explain medical issues to my male patients. They were farmers and fishermen without much experience with illness, medications or medical procedures. Most of them came to see me reluctantly at their wives’ insistence.

Gradually, I found my voice and a style that has served me well over the years. As a Boy Scout and grandson of a farmer with more than an average interest in automobiles, I have found enough analogies from my own experience to be able to cross the cultural barriers I have encountered in my new homeland.

I may explain risk aversion by talking about why some men wear both a belt and suspenders. Heart attacks and angina are, obviously, related to plugged fuel lines. Beta blocker therapy is similar to shifting your manual transmission into fifth gear. Sudden discontinuation of beta blocker therapy is like releasing an inadvertently engaged emergency brake while driving with your gas pedal fully depressed. Untreated hypertension is like driving down the highway in third gear, and orthostatic hypotension is a lot like getting poor water pressure in an attic apartment.