I am 26 years old female experiencing a series of symptoms for over 15 years. I've had several bad medical experiences that I want to try to avoid in the future. I'm quite by myself in this and have to find ways to protect myself, without any support.
I was wondering, if by means of protecting yourself as patient and avoid future misunderstanding in the health care system, is it legal to ask a physician if he can recorded during my appointments. I would only want to record audio, as I do not wish to intimidate or make people feel like I'm on a mission to expose something bad, which is really not my intent. I have no intent of taking a physician to court or find the needle in the hay stack just to cash on some dollars. I've been going through a lot with health care system and i feel i have no credibility to them because i'm not the expert. I look back at some things i had to go through and wish to myself that I had some type of proof that to protect myself. In my experience, my say has no value, so this is why I think I should up it a notch and make sure that someone can't say to me that i'm lyiing or making stuff up or anything like. Anyhow, the whole ordeal is a very long story, but bottom line is, just like a doctor has a system to protect him and procedures he has to follow in order to cya (cover-your-***), i don't see why i couldn't be in my rights to do the same for myself, just in case.
The other side to the story is to actually getting the physician to consent to being recorded, which I realize is going to be difficult and a challenge in itself, but for now, I just want to know about the legal implications and find out if it's even feasible.
I appreciate anyone's input who would know anything about this or know where I could find out.
I forgot to mention that I'm in Canada, so the legislation might be slightly different, but it's usually quite similar when it comes to ethics and patient confidentiality and all that sort of thing. I guess if you're in Canada, I will especially interested in hearing from you, but for most of the board who is in the US, I'd like to hear from your experiences too, especially if it's possible and you have done it before.
