Write Your Health Resume
To Get Him (Maybe Her) to Notice You
Why write a health resume? It helps you to organize and prioritize your symptoms, health history and questions. It’s a working document that you can return to and edit for new or different specialists. It creates a concise presentation. You have complete control over the content (How many times have you tried to correct or update your health history or medications in your electronic health record?). Everyone can get a copy—your provider, you, your support person(s). It’s a useful canvas for you and your support person to take notes and record answers to the questions on your resume. It can be kept with your relevant notes in your personal records for later reference. It allows you to efficiently influence at least part of the agenda of your appointment. It’s easier for your provider than searching through far-flung parts of your medical chart for disparate pieces of information. The following are some helpful tips for how to develop it.
One Page
Keep it to one typed page. If you do nothing else I suggest, fit it onto one page. The reason may be self-explanatory—the provider you see is only likely to look at one page.
SBAR
Nurses use an acronym called SBAR to communicate concisely with physicians. SBAR is useful for organizing a draft, but you should remove the prompts before your appointment because they may confuse the interaction with your provider, either by appearing to have some medical training yourself, or by giving the provider the impression that you’re trying to manipulate him/her/them.
Situation (Concern(s))
List your top concern for the appointment. If you can’t limit yourself to one concern, try to limit yourself to three, listed in order of importance to you.
Background (History)
List what you think is your relevant health history to your top concern(s) and any test results, along with applicable dates—dates of testing, dates of diagnoses. If you can’t narrow it down, try to bullet point it or make columns, but leave plenty of space between columns for readability and note-taking.
Assessment (Symptoms)
List your current symptoms, including when they started, where they’re located, what they feel like (stabbing, aching, throbbing), when or if they resolved, what makes them worse, what makes them better.
Recommendations (Questions)
Definitely don’t make recommendations in this section, but do ask your questions here.
Alternative Format
If you’re uncomfortable with using the nursing format, or if the format above does not work well for you in an appointment and you’d like to try something else, an alternative that a patient I know developed and uses is:
Current Diagnoses (Date of Diagnosis)
List them.
Current Concerns
List them.
Unresolved/Unexplained Issues
List them, ask any questions.
Conclusion
Most of the benefit of writing your health resume is to organize your history, your symptoms and your questions in a way that clarifies them to you. It also gives you some narrative- and agenda-control during your appointment. It acts as an important reference to return to during your appointment to make sure all your concerns were communicated and all your questions were asked and addressed. It serves as a record of your appointment and any answers you received. If you have any suggestions for what to include on a successful health resume, please leave a comment.
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As someone who has done a lot of going to visits with older relatives, especially, this is REALLY helpful! I love the format and that it's something that can constantly be updated. Probably more useful than a notebook full of cryptic notes from various appointments and conversations (i.e. my organizational structure)!
This is such great advice for anyone dealing with more complex health issues, not only autoimmune disorders. Thank you!