WHEN DOCTORS ARE SCARED TOO

The wall of mistrust and suspicion between patients and doctors seems to be ever-bulging. Patients are scared of doctors, no doubt. However, the overwhelmingly one-sided stories fail to present the equal fear of the doctors while dealing with the patients. 

It is unsettling when the patient presents information about a randomly different specialisation and asks for an opinion. The pace of expanding medical specialisations makes the idiom ‘the right hand is unaware of what the left is doing’ obsolete. More appropriate would be ‘the right thumb not knowing what the right index finger is doing’. As a classic example, showing a geneticist’s reports to a surgeon, representing the far two extremes of the intellectual spectrum in the medical sector, is just unfair. The patient or the attendants, in the meantime, have already gathered information from the fountainhead of poison called Google. Sometimes, they have more information about genetics than the poor surgeon. A geneticist’s report generally appears like some ancient hieroglyphics to most surgeons, and the only thing keeping them from plunging a scalpel into the attendants is the extreme degree of cultivated patience over decades.

Patients also use the diabolical trick of showing the opinion of the same domain expert but sitting in a different area, state, or nation. These are usually after the doctor has expressed an opinion about medicines or the need for surgery. When the opinions diverge, there is a powerful smile of victory. “Ha,” the eyes seem to yell. There are a few exceptions where patients show the opinions beforehand. But this reinforces the rule that the patient presents the prior reports only afterward. Holding up the aces, as they say. God forbid if there are opposing viewpoints and one of the doctors has grey hair and the other one, black. The branding of the black-haired one is immediate. Doctors these days are not trying to reverse age. The pressure is to age faster. Some of them, according to the grapevine, dye their hair grey to look older.   

The scariest part, of course, is when patients begin to inquire about diet. I am sure most do not know anything specific. At least I don’t. Very few adages from my medical school stick in my memory: jaggery, good for iron; salt, bad for hypertension; sugar, bad for diabetes; green vegetables, good for fibre and everything else; fruits, dry fruits, ragi, good for fibre; oil contains lipids because oil is lipids; meat has proteins; milk has calcium but no fibre. I know you are wondering why this obsession with fibre. That’s because constipation—which results from a lack of it—makes up a good portion of my consultations. A secret. Practically every single food item has been propagated and condemned in equal measure by the experts in the two and a half decades of my medical career. So, eat what you want, then pray and love. This is my understanding of diet anyway.

Therefore, sympathise when I get inundated with inquiries like, “Is garlic beneficial for arthritis?” “Which foods should be avoided for gout?”  Or Malaria. Who knows? Read up on the Internet, dear. Of course, the worst question is, “Can I (or my child) have pulses or daal after the operation?” I have never understood the mysterious public notion of associating daal with wound infections. I suppose it is the colour yellow. Regardless, it is a great tool for surgeons to transfer the blame for wound infection to the patients. Pulses serve the same purpose as water for my crooked cell phone repairer. The latter badgers me until I confess that, at some point, in some remote past, some water may have contacted my cell phone. Rebels exist in all families who bunk the idea of not giving daal to the patient. A critical tip to doctors: Try to elicit the daal information to squarely blame the patient (or their family) for any wound issues.

The ones I hate the most are those attendants seated across, making awkward positional changes, or fiddling with the cell phones hidden from my view. It is undeniably an audio-video recording of the conversation. A handful of them caught in the act give evasive and vague explanations, laying the blame on some distant friend or relative. Well, not asking permission beforehand is unacceptable. I wish they would stumble and fall on their way out.

Then there are some who have exceptionally abominable cell phone manners. The phones will ring, they will take the call, and they will walk out of the room conversing when I am in the middle of conveying something crucial. I find myself looking aimlessly at my counselling sheets in dumb silence. The doctors are conducting a poll to best deal with this kind of almost universal behaviour. Proposals suggest that the gentlest punishment would involve making them walk on hot coals. Another time, I had to take a critical call in the middle of a consultation. The patient’s father also received a call, and he started speaking without the basic courtesy of even leaving the room. I left the room to wrap up my call. By the time I returned, he was still talking, with not a hint of distress or shame on his face. The blighter. Such are the troubles we face too, dear world, who think doctors stand just behind smugglers, dacoits, and thugs. Well, we come after you. Take that.