Doctor Killed Him??

“The Doctor Killed Him!”                               

Prof Maj S Bakhtiar Choudhary (Retd)

Just think once,

Are we attacking the pilot for delaying the flight?

Is aviation minister penalized for an air crash?

Are we assaulting Municipal offices for Air pollution?

Are we penalizing electricity board for cutting down the roadside trees?

These questions can go on….

Is doctor a Murderer?

The title seemed to pop out of the newspaper. Would have been better suited in a Robin Cook medical thriller, I thought wearily. In my 35 years of practice as a Medical Doctor, having served from the Armed Forces to private national hospital chains like Apollo, to regional consulting diagnostic centres like Elbit, Vijaya and Tenet, I have yet to come across a doctor who was in the medical profession to willingly take a life (Not to mention quacks, who don’t get appointed in respectable hospitals). Then why do these headlines scream ‘doctor is the murderer’ from the pages of social media every so often, as if it was the spoiler of a movie? Of course, the TRP ratings go up, just like the ‘likes’ to a post of a crime thriller. Why else would our media fan this fire?

Today media is repeatedly showing doctor is being beaten-up by patient’s attendants. Like how people learn things from movies, common man is learning that doctor can be made responsible for not saving life of a person. The result is assault on doctors on duty. Perhaps media is also not realizing their coverage could lead to more irresponsible and foolish behavior.

Doctor is trained to save people

Given the right facilities and the right faculties of mind (unless doctor has become crazy), no doctor would ever kill a patient simply because he is trained to do exactly the opposite-try and save the life! A doctor trains for almost a decade, with sometimes pitifully small remuneration (in the early years of the training), to physically and mentally exhausting working conditions, just because they believe that this is their purpose-to save lives and give patients best chance to live a healthy life. If they are unable to save a life, whose job is it to find out whether it was a mistake of the doctor or not? Not of the people who sometimes, in a fit of frenzy, go after the ‘life-saver’ themselves, as if blaming the death on the doctor and beating him with their own hands is going to bring back the dead. Revenge only leads to greater misery.

Why people behave foolishly?

Sometimes people behave foolishly! Especially the patient’s attendants! They believe beating the doctors is the ultimate solution. For even one second, they don’t think what a grave sin it is to punish the healer. For them, the healer is not God, just a human being. Taking the same argument further, if doctor is human then how can he save all the lives? There are some terminally ill patients who can be saved only by a miracle, not a human doctor. There are babies whose lives are yet so fragile, that saving all babies is impossible. There are such diseases which medical science is yet to understand fully. Statistics or data of any hospital, even the best hospitals in the developed nations in the world will reveal that all lives cannot be saved. Sometimes a mere blood clot can travel and get lodged in a place where it causes a stroke. This in spite of giving blood thinners. There are many such examples.

I welcome those attendants of patients to talk to me or any other doctor, who will patiently explain the no. of things that could go wrong in the human body. I wish doctors would pay more attention to patients’ attendants than they usually do. These attendants are also the sufferers, not just the patients. When a patient is lying on the hospital bed comatose or under influence of drugs, it is the care-givers waiting outside who are suffering the brunt of the situation. They need to be explained tactfully the seriousness of the patient.  It’s better not to give unrealistic hopes.

If the same doctor is busy, the doctor can delegate this task to another doctor. As per research, female doctors are better at this. Their motherly instinct takes over and they are known to give more time to patients and their care-givers than the male doctors. This known fact can be utilized by all doctors. Instead, sometimes doctors speak against their colleagues, which further damages the safety of the entire medical fraternity.

Doctors who handle emergencies and are on night duties are at high risk for attacks. It is better to prevent heated discussions with attendants by assigning a female doctor or an experienced female nurse to talk to them patiently. More than 2 attendants should not be entertained inside the hospital room. Entertaining unrelated people who accompany the patient can create trouble; hence should be discouraged. Some alleged incidents happen in private hospitals perhaps due to marketing strategy and management demands but not because of doctors. Unfortunately, the savior becomes the scape-goat.

Doctors do no possess magical powers

First thing we must understand that Lord Krishna, Rama, Pope, Shankaracharya, NTR, Jayalalithaa and many have died and doctors or priests could not save them. Media should make people understand that doctors are human beings and do not possess magical powers. Instead people have learnt that doctor should save every life. Media should refrain from showing these incidents to increase their TRP rating. Those incidents should be handled independently without major publicity.

Disease patterns have changed over the years and accurate diagnosis is not always possible, Supreme Court has given guidelines that doctor cannot be penalised for not diagnosing accurately. Differential diagnosis and impressions on possible diagnosis are also valid. Pharma industry is not under the control of doctors. They cannot control the molecules which replace the older ones often. Media has the power and widespread coverage to explain this to the common man. Such an article should be printed along with the article reporting the beatings, not on another page, another day alone.

Political leaders should avoid following every case to make their importance in public. They don’t understand the anguish and careful attempts of a doctor and the pathos of an attendant. In case of alleged negligence, a case can be filed in a manner prescribed by law, in extreme situations.

Citizens should take care of their health with pro-active approach. Today majority of Indians are after money neglecting their bodies, I see many youth who visit me with severe disc disease due to sheer negligence and they expect the doctor to save them miraculously from surgery within no time. Doctors are humans. They have spent money and time to study for many years. More than 85% of doctors do not make enough money when compared to their counterparts; they have sacrificed so many nights in attending emergencies, they need peoples’ support and gentle understanding of their occupational needs..