Doctors are human too..
On a particularly busy morning session, I heard a loud voice outside, protesting the lack of professionalism and efficiency in the clinic, and the futility of taking appointments. The palpable scorn on his face as he walked in with a child that did not look sick at all, because I had made him wait a bit while I was trying to console and reassure the parents of a newly diagnosed juvenile diabetic who must take insulin for life, made me feel sick in the stomach. What is it that provokes so much anger and impatience when people deal with doctors, despite our genuine efforts to make life easy for the parents and the little ones? What do stressed out parents, balancing careers and children, expect from doctors?
Just yesterday a senior pediatrician colleague of mine survived an attempt on his life. His only probable fault was that he couldn’t play God, and was unable to save a child having pnuemonia from dying. Looking at his mauled neck and face, I couldn’t suppress a feeling of apprehension and despair. It could very well have been me! A large majority of doctors in our country are practicing with this perpetual threat of violence against them, their staff and their families.
I have tried to understand why this trend of using doctors as punching bags is on the rise. Here are some of the common grouses I have read and heard both in the media, and in animated discussions at cocktail parties. I wish to answer them from a doctor’s point of view.
Doctors are money minded blood suckers!
I admit that some allegations of doctors taking patients for a ride tend to be true. But contrary to popular belief, a vast majority of us doctors do have a conscience, and care about our patients and their financial wellbeing. We do not hesitate to waive off our charges for the deserving poor, and sometimes fish out money from our pockets to fund investigations and treatment. That said, most of us start earning only in our late twenties or early thirties, and we need to feed and educate our children just like anyone else, so please do not grudge us our legitimate fees. In fact, it is these senseless assaults on doctors that are forcing us to practice defensive medicine, and hence the rise in the unnecessary and probably avoidable investigations and admissions to hospitals!
Doctors are stone hearted and insensitive!
Nothing can be farther from the truth. A doctor goes through an overwhelming range of emotions in his practice. Joy after successfully diagnosing and treating a patient, helplessness while encountering an untreatable disease, fear of missing a diagnosis and causing harm, and anger at patients who Google the symptoms and come with preconceived notions regarding their illness, constitute a small section of the emotional roller coaster we ride daily. Sometimes a twinge of envy too, when we see the comparatively easy timings and work conditions, large incomes, fancy cars and the mansions of our doctor friends abroad, and indignation that most young people in the IT industry get weekends off, while our young doctors are stuck with a demanding 24 x 7 x 365 job!
Doctors are willfully negligent!
We agree that mistakes can happen, and the best of doctors may cause harm because of a wrong diagnosis or a blotched surgery. But to suggest that a doctor will intentionally harm a patient by administering a wrong medicine, or deliberately performing a wrong surgery is absurd! He may as well flush his career down the drain, a career that he has studied close to 12 years to just start practicing and is probably his only source of income (we doctors are glorified daily wage workers in the sense that no work means no pay). A doctor must be completely nuts to commit such professional hara-kiri!
Doctors can’t manage time, and make patients wait unnecessarily!
Why would a doctor do this, when all that he would love to do is finish the clinic quickly, and go back home to his family? Most of us are delayed because of unforeseen emergencies, and also by urgent walk-ins. Many of us have tried to use technology in the form of online appointment booking to try reduce the waiting time, but then there are limitations there too. Here I acknowledge that most of my clients are completely understanding, and quietly wait for their turn even when they have been on time, and the delay is from my side. Thank you and I apologize for the inconvenience caused.
Doctors are in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry!
Various cartoons with the doctor and the medical representative as subjects have been around for ages. But the fact is, the medical fraternity needs the pharmaceutical industry as much as they need us, and a symbiotic existence between the two is essential for progress. Research done by the pharma and vaccine industries keep providing us with new armamentarium to fight illnesses. Few doctors take advantage of this interdependence, but thankfully they are a minority. Mostly the interaction is limited to a sumptuous dinner at a star hotel whenever a new product or vaccine is launched, or when an international speaker arrives to impart some knowledge.
Doctors do not update their knowledge!
People seem to be losing faith in the diagnostic and therapeutic abilities of doctors, and so come armed with a thick wad of paper filled with information gathered from search engines. Knowing about your illness once it is diagnosed by a doctor makes sense, but the opposite is what is happening most of the time. There is a lot of trash floating around in the internet and social media, and more often than not, patients end up more confused and anxious. Have some faith in your doctor. Navjot Singh Siddu said, “experience is a comb that life gives you as you are growing bald”. In most of us, the balding is evident, but then, we have learnt from our experiences too, and from mistakes (of ours and others); and this is not something that is taught in medical school or proportionate to the number of degrees you have. What we learn on the street of practice finds its way to our pen and prescription.
Doctors are not easily available, and we cannot contact them when we want!
This is a common grouse, despite many doctors giving out their cell phone numbers to patients. I used to give out my number too, until the waking up in the middle of the night almost every day to answer a call from a panicky mother began to take a toll on my health, and the consequent daytime sleepiness affected my judgment in the clinic the subsequent day. In any case, doctors can sometimes inadvertently give wrong advice over the phone, as they have not actually seen or examined the patient, and therefore it is always prudent to visit a hospital when there is a problem in the night. Thankfully, technology has come to our help here, and today, a doctor is able to give a reasonably accurate opinion online.
The list is much longer, and there are many more angles to this problem. It is compounded by the fact that doctors are handed a raw deal by the news media, most often pronouncing them guilty without a fair trial. Improper communication is another mistake that most of us doctors are guilty of, and is one area where each doctor should aspire to improve in. Arrogance and dismissive behavior have no place in patient relationship management and is usually the root cause of most flare-ups.
We are only human and can make mistakes. Please forgive us when we commit them. But do not hold us responsible for every mishap that occurs in a hospital or clinic. An adverse reaction to a drug, vaccine or anesthetic may be the result of your body reacting abnormally to a perfectly safe substance. If you still feel that you have been wronged, complain to the statutory bodies, but don’t beat us up, or defame us on news and social media.
Medicine no longer seems to be a preferred profession for the young. The ones who have had a close look at our lives (doctors’ children) want no part of it and are choosing other careers. Let us give our young doctors, who have chosen the profession knowing very well what they are getting into, the right encouragement and atmosphere to excel. Remember, each one of us will need a doctor’s services one day or the other, and if these atrocious assaults keep happening, there may not be many doctors left!