How to navigate the medical system as a dizzy patient
It can be difficult to navigate the medical system when you are dizzy.
Finding good care for dizziness is harder than it should be. Many patients spend months being referred from doctor to doctor, receiving conflicting explanations, and leaving appointments with more questions than answers. In this free course, we give you the tools to change that: how to find a provider with genuine expertise in dizziness, how to describe your symptoms in ways that lead to better answers, and how to evaluate the medical information you receive so you can make informed decisions about your own care. You shouldn't need an insider's knowledge to get good care — but until the system changes, this course is the next best thing.
This material is intended for educational purposes only, and does not substitute evaluation by a qualified medical professional.
In developing this course we reviewed literature (so that you don't have to)!
Articles that may be useful for patients:
- Kerber KA, Newman-Toker DE (2015) Misdiagnosing Dizzy Patients: Common Pitfalls in Clinical Practice. Neurol Clin 33: 565-75, viii. doi: 10.1016/j.ncl.2015.04.009
- Newman-Toker DE, Edlow JA (2015) TiTrATE: A Novel, Evidence-Based Approach to Diagnosing Acute Dizziness and Vertigo. Neurol Clin 33: 577-99, viii. doi: 10.1016/j.ncl.2015.04.011
- Stanton VA, Hsieh YH, Camargo CA, Jr., Edlow JA, Lovett PB, Goldstein JN, Abbuhl S, Lin M, Chanmugam A, Rothman RE, Newman-Toker DE (2007) Overreliance on symptom quality in diagnosing dizziness: results of a multicenter survey of emergency physicians. Mayo Clin Proc 82: 1319-28. doi: 10.4065/82.11.1319
Articles for specialists who want to dig deeper:
- An MW, Duong Q, Le-Rademacher J, Mandrekar SJ (2020) Principles of Good Clinical Trial Design. J Thorac Oncol 15: 1277-1280. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2020.05.005
- Evans SR (2010) Fundamentals of clinical trial design. J Exp Stroke Transl Med 3: 19-27. doi: 10.6030/1939-067x-3.1.19
- Subramanyam R (2013) Art of reading a journal article: Methodically and effectively. J Oral Maxillofac Pathol 17: 65-70. doi: 10.4103/0973-029X.110733
