Doctors Miss the Point About Patients’ Behavior

The Doctor Files essay (“Sometimes, Modesty Is No Virtue at All,” May 27) demonstrates the folly of leaving it to physicians to interpret patient reactions. The behavior of the patients (“Edna” and “John”) has little or nothing to do with modesty; instead it demonstrates denial and an “ostrich” approach toward illness (“If I don’t get it diagnosed, maybe it won’t hurt me”).

This same approach is seen in people who won’t get tested for, say, AIDS because they don’t want to know--as if this would somehow save them from the disease.

DAVID WIN

Santa Barbara