Almost all people go to doctors at some point of their lives, though most of the times, is for common illnesses. And simple treatments are adequate for most of the problems. But still I am not sure of the factors that help the patients in choosing a doctor. Most cases, it is still the 'kai raasi' factor, mostly through hearsay / word of mouth and the degree of "busi'ness of the practice (pun intended)
The practice of the doctors is considered to be proportionate to their skills and knowledge; but most of the time its unfortunately untrue. It's got to do more with their PR skills most of the time and the way they flaunt their degrees, the validity of some of which are not known! But there are also some really good doctors who have huge crowds, because they are genuinely good!
There is no real objective way to assess how good a doctor is , from the patient's point of view; and there is no system like ICC / ATP rankings to rate the docs , thought people still ask if a so and so doc is the number 1, much to my amusement and embarrassment!
Being a doc myself (though belonging to the most hated fraternity among the doctors themselves), I feel there are certain clues to identify the nature of your doc
1. Those that resort to injections for all sorts of fever, as the first line of management
2. Those who charge the same fees for follow up consultation even within 3-5 days
3. Those who insist on getting investigations done at specific places only
4. Those who insist on buying specific drug brands only in spite of cheaper and equally good options
5. Those who own the pharmacies, where profit margins are mostly double (its never passed on to the patients
6. Those who talk ill about the other doctors in front of patients
7. Those who ask for concession for costly investigations, specifically mentioning a figure, without asking for maximal concession (they would still be getting their usually exorbitant commission, by inflating the charges!
8. Those who admit patients in their small nursing homes, more often than not
9. Those who send their sick in patients for investigations , without the care of a doctor / trained nurse
There are a lot more , which I will keep adding!
4 comments:
I dont agree on all criteria, but may I add this : those who give steroids for all illnesses, and most hated, those who give antibiotics irrationally - but this would be difficult for the patient to discern; my latest hatred is for people who give Linezolid for community acquired pneumonia, and ciprofloxacin for chronic diarrhea, and worse, moxifloxacin monotherpay for "resistant" TB- what absolute disregard for medical ethic, I feel such people should be rightfully sued, if not by the patient, then by responsible doctors - I feel pretty tempted these days!
machi i'm not running clinic now... i was doing a nice ethical practice long back but i started feeling...
everything is a business... why should we earn less than any one. you know even small pharmacists earn in lakhs..WE ARE PUSHED TO EARN TO SHINE AS CREAMY LAYER IN SOCIETY. ETHICAL FELLOWS GOES UNNOTICED AND DISPPEAR AS ASHES. ALL UNETHICAL, ADVERTSING AND CUTS PEOPLE SHINE TODAY.
Ethics is no more except a few real GODS whom only we can identify.
The list is endless. In short doing the exact opposite
to what we all have signed for..... the so called ' Hipoccratic oath' . What really gets on my nerves is when people practice medicine like a business. I agree we are making a living out of it and is reasonable to have an upper class life after having gone through the pain of getting into medicine and having an unsocial life as a doctor. But when doctors get greedy ( which seems to be the general attitude for all these days) it gets sick. I agree that we both are in a profession were we don't have to sit in clinics or run a nursing home. We may not know the practicalities of it. But it shouldn't be too hard to practice with some ethics!
Nice post venkat
Post a Comment