Don't Go to the Doctor without Me!

By Damiano de Sano Iocovozzi

"Don't Go to the Doctor without Me" is your personal road map through the health care maze from wellness exams to chronic care management, teaching you how to be your own health care advocate. Uninsured or under insured, this book includes important tips on how to get low cost or free services while still receiving the best possible care. "Don’t Go to the Doctor without Me" is brief, to the point and the only book to date to focus on the many aspects of a doctor-patient relationship. The author draws from his 23 years of experience as a nurse to provide all the questions patients should ask during every encounter—wellness exams, episodic illness, chronic illness—and completes the provider-patient partnership. Take control of your medical care and live a healthy life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Transformation Media Books
• Release date: Oct 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452445694

Damiano de Sano Iocovozzi

Damiano de Sano Iocovozzi, MSN FNP CNS is a world traveler, linguist and family nurse practitioner. From an early age, growing up in upstate New York, he was fascinated with languages, the spirit of giving and knowledge of other cultures and countries. Damiano completed years of language study and work in Italy, France and Germany. Later, he became a Peace Corps Volunteer and served in a small high school in Meknes, Morocco.After the Peace Corps, Damiano traveled to San Francisco, California where he worked as an international tour director, leading organized tours around the world. However, Damiano found his true calling becoming a registered nurse and clinical nurse specialist upon earning his degree from the University of San Francisco. During the AIDS epidemic, he specialized in caring for the very sick on a local AIDS hospital floor.Damiano completed a post-Master’s certificate as a family nurse practitioner from Samuel Merritt University where he worked as an instructor for nine years. He also worked as a clinical nurse specialist and educator for Summit Hospital in Oakland. He served veterans as a family nurse practitioner for a number of years in Vallejo, California. Damiano worked in a number of small clinics in primary care and cardiology in Palm Springs, California, where he currently lives. He is the author of "Sooner or Later: Restoring Sanity to Your End-of-Life Care" in a second printing as "Don’t Die Without Me" and the upcoming third release in the Sooner or Later trilogy, "Don’t Take Your Child to the Doctor without Me".

Book preview

This is a gem for all consumers of health care and their providers. Finally a guide to make our patients active partners in their care. I really like the questions provided for the patients to ask. Dom is right on with the changes in health care and presents ways people can get what they need. ~ Sheila David M.D., University of Toronto, Emergency Department Physician and Adjunct Professor of Medicine.

Don’t Go to the Doctor without Me!

Damiano de Sano Iocovozzi, MSN, FNP, CNS

Author of Sooner or Later: Restoring Sanity to Your End-of-Life Care

Published by Transformation Media Books at Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Damiano de Sano Iocovozzi

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Dedication

To Francesca Ancona, Thanks for the memories!

To Rose de Sano Iocovozzi Seppi and Vincent Iocovozzi. Better parents one could never find.

To Mary, Cosmas, Gerri and Vincent, nicer siblings one could never find.

To Doctor Brian Kelber and the University of San Francisco, my ethics professor and my alma mater.

To Sue Sales, Donna Ross, Lorenzo Morales, Marguerite Bales, Mary Beth Dean, Dolly Smith, Lloyd, Peter and Hattie Spivak, Joe and Jimmy Thurston, Josephine Komos, Mary DiSano, Sharon Evered. Verna Favat Cristiano and Thomas Edwin Walls. All pillars of love and strength.

Table of Contents

Thanks and Gratitude

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One: Self-assessment and Get Your Head On Straight!

Chapter Two: Wellness Exam: Finding a Provider and Clinic

Chapter Three: The Episodic Visit, The Six Goals of Medicine, and the Forms of Disease

Chapter Four: Chronic Illness, Early On

Chapter Five: Chronic Illness, Later On

Chapter Six: Un-insured or Under-insured: It Pays to Shop

Chapter Seven: Conclusion and Going Forward

References

Biblography

Desiderata by Max Ehrman

About the Author

Thanks and Gratitude

A special thank you to Drew Johnson who listened to me reading this volume over and over. Thank you to Ginny Weissman, my publisher, who encouraged me to keep writing. Thank you to Anjala Cariou who prepared the text of this work.

Thanks to my Twitter and Facebook friends who helped launch my first book with so many five star reviews.

Preface

As a child I liked living with happy surprises and have continued to do so as an adult. I never really expected to be a nurse as I was educated in languages at several universities, and at that time, I expected to be employed as a simultaneous translator or as an instructor of foreign languages.

After graduation, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco where I taught English. After the Peace Corps in 1979, I moved to San Francisco as a tour operator and later got an International job as a tour director for a major travel corporation, using my language skills on world tours.

Suddenly in 1981, a mysterious illness emerged which caused tremendous fear and hardship. It was called AIDS and many of my acquaintances and a few friends were stricken. I found myself volunteering between tours and taking care of loved ones in their home or mine until they passed away.

One day, I was in a quandary about my ability to care for others and my lack of knowledge of medical care and nursing. I was sitting in a hotel room in Waikiki when I decided to go into medicine. After returning home, I was walking around the campus at the University of San Francisco and took a seat in front of the School of Nursing. A well-dressed lady sat next to me and we started to talk. I told her I was considering returning to school to study medicine since I saw the devastation since this epidemic began. She said I might want to consider a career in nursing. She pointed to a building that housed the School of Nursing where she was the Dean. That was in 1984. Since then I have 23 years of working at the bedside that to my surprise became my life’s work. Now I offer what I learned to you. I’ll be many things to you while reading this book: a trustworthy old friend, a doting godfather, a battle-scarred registered nurse. I will hold your hand. Now just call me Dom.

Introduction

Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are more successful. ~ Denis Diderot

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