Our Society and Our Doctors
A lot has changed over the past few years. When I was a child my parents used to say that being a Doctor is the greatest profession in the world and that Doctors are next to God. Now that I am about to be one I have a very different perspective. Were my parents naïve or has things really changed so much. I don't know about the rest of the world but here in India the sacred relationship between a doctor and a patient is no longer sacred and its a two way street.
Every week in the news cycle theres a report about some Doctor who messed up and that the people are furious. The immediate inference amongst people is that the quality of health system has fallen drastically. What they fail to realise is that due to improved technology and connectivity, Media reports every single medical mess up to the public which was not possible few years back.
Doctors are human beings too. They have a life and their own set of problems. And yes they mess up sometimes. Its only human to do so. Now its unfortunate part of the profession that when a doctor messes up, a person may die. But one must keep in mind the 'human part' of a doctor, and talk your way through it when minor incidents happen. Especially when it comes to young new inexperienced doctors. That's my point of view. You are welcome to disagree.
That's not to say that there are doctors who in spite of being well trained and experienced, commit accidents due to their carelessness and ignorance. When I was a student in a coaching institute in Kota, Rajasthan, I remember one of the middle aged Biology teachers who used to be a Doctor but then he quit and became a teacher. I used to wonder why and one fine day he told us a story- It happened on a sunny day in a village in Rajasthan he was posted. An old man came with an infection of some kind and the drug of choice was Penicillin. He wrote a prescription and ordered the nurse to administer the drug. Little did he know the patient died in the next few minutes at an ear shot of him and nobody noticed. Now you might know that being a substance of foreign origin, an Intra Venous injection of penicillin may cause a major hypersensitive reaction called Anaphylaxis in susceptible people. So a small test is performed in new patients to detect that tendency. The patient had that severe allergic reaction and died silently within minutes while everyone else was busy tending everyone else. The nurse obviously didn't perform that and the Doctor must have missed to remind her of that. In her defence the nurse said she asked the patient if he has taken this drug before and he answered in positive, which if you ask me may or may not be true. The matter rose to a riot like situation and very soon the whole village was surrounding the health center ready to burn down whatever walks out of it. The staff had to be rescued by the police.
Now in the above story who is to be blamed. Your options are- the Doctor, the nurse, both of them, the patient, or PM Modi. The last option is for the members of AAP who blame anything from the Second World War to 9/11 on the PM. Intellectual range of a teaspoon aside, in my opinion the death of the patient was in fact caused by the negligence of both the Doctor as well as the nurse. What that teacher never told us was what happened next? Did he lose his license? Did he got sued? Did the villagers burned down the center? And was it the consequence of this accident that he took to teaching?
Now my own family had a fair share of such incidents. It practically opened my eyes as a teenager to the fact that you cannot blindly trust your Doctor. Both the times it was my sister getting messed up due to her Gynaecologist's carelessness. The first time was minor and technically the nurse's fault while the second time was a major accident. What should a Doctor do if he lands up in such a regretful situation? Ideally a Doctor should sit down the patient and a family member, explain the whole situation in simplest words, giving them a justifiable reason why the incident happened, apologise for it, waive all fees and drugs cost yet, offer them the whole further care of the illness and the accident for free, and an option for second opinion from a different respected Doctor. This should be documented as much as possible in case the patients decides to sue. Not to forget that being sued is a Doctor's worst nightmare.
All the stories of Surgeons leaving scissors or towels inside patient's body, deserve to be sued since its a criminal negligence and may cause grievous injury to death of the patient. Other than a Doctor's carelessness and/or incompetence, there could be other factors that may cause such incidents like human errors of nurses, misdiagnosis, accidents in complicated surgeries, lack of infrastructures, under reporting by patients, incompliance of patients to treatment etc. Now that I have blamed my own people enough, in the next part of this article I will explain why the degradation of Doctor-patient relationship is a two way street.
Every week in the news cycle theres a report about some Doctor who messed up and that the people are furious. The immediate inference amongst people is that the quality of health system has fallen drastically. What they fail to realise is that due to improved technology and connectivity, Media reports every single medical mess up to the public which was not possible few years back.
Doctors are human beings too. They have a life and their own set of problems. And yes they mess up sometimes. Its only human to do so. Now its unfortunate part of the profession that when a doctor messes up, a person may die. But one must keep in mind the 'human part' of a doctor, and talk your way through it when minor incidents happen. Especially when it comes to young new inexperienced doctors. That's my point of view. You are welcome to disagree.
That's not to say that there are doctors who in spite of being well trained and experienced, commit accidents due to their carelessness and ignorance. When I was a student in a coaching institute in Kota, Rajasthan, I remember one of the middle aged Biology teachers who used to be a Doctor but then he quit and became a teacher. I used to wonder why and one fine day he told us a story- It happened on a sunny day in a village in Rajasthan he was posted. An old man came with an infection of some kind and the drug of choice was Penicillin. He wrote a prescription and ordered the nurse to administer the drug. Little did he know the patient died in the next few minutes at an ear shot of him and nobody noticed. Now you might know that being a substance of foreign origin, an Intra Venous injection of penicillin may cause a major hypersensitive reaction called Anaphylaxis in susceptible people. So a small test is performed in new patients to detect that tendency. The patient had that severe allergic reaction and died silently within minutes while everyone else was busy tending everyone else. The nurse obviously didn't perform that and the Doctor must have missed to remind her of that. In her defence the nurse said she asked the patient if he has taken this drug before and he answered in positive, which if you ask me may or may not be true. The matter rose to a riot like situation and very soon the whole village was surrounding the health center ready to burn down whatever walks out of it. The staff had to be rescued by the police.
Now in the above story who is to be blamed. Your options are- the Doctor, the nurse, both of them, the patient, or PM Modi. The last option is for the members of AAP who blame anything from the Second World War to 9/11 on the PM. Intellectual range of a teaspoon aside, in my opinion the death of the patient was in fact caused by the negligence of both the Doctor as well as the nurse. What that teacher never told us was what happened next? Did he lose his license? Did he got sued? Did the villagers burned down the center? And was it the consequence of this accident that he took to teaching?
Now my own family had a fair share of such incidents. It practically opened my eyes as a teenager to the fact that you cannot blindly trust your Doctor. Both the times it was my sister getting messed up due to her Gynaecologist's carelessness. The first time was minor and technically the nurse's fault while the second time was a major accident. What should a Doctor do if he lands up in such a regretful situation? Ideally a Doctor should sit down the patient and a family member, explain the whole situation in simplest words, giving them a justifiable reason why the incident happened, apologise for it, waive all fees and drugs cost yet, offer them the whole further care of the illness and the accident for free, and an option for second opinion from a different respected Doctor. This should be documented as much as possible in case the patients decides to sue. Not to forget that being sued is a Doctor's worst nightmare.
All the stories of Surgeons leaving scissors or towels inside patient's body, deserve to be sued since its a criminal negligence and may cause grievous injury to death of the patient. Other than a Doctor's carelessness and/or incompetence, there could be other factors that may cause such incidents like human errors of nurses, misdiagnosis, accidents in complicated surgeries, lack of infrastructures, under reporting by patients, incompliance of patients to treatment etc. Now that I have blamed my own people enough, in the next part of this article I will explain why the degradation of Doctor-patient relationship is a two way street.
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