Violence…violence…violence! Doctors don’t like violence. But violence likes the doctors!! - V.D.F-Chapter-1

 

Violence…violence…violence! Doctors don’t like violence. But violence likes the doctors!!

No body cares for doctors! no govt is interested to protect the profession. No media supports the just cause of medical services. No NGO has  soft corner for doctors! No patient is kind enough to the doctors. 

Every Indian expects that’ A Doctor in India, should : 

• be brilliant, 
• be willing to study for hours & years, 
• be willing to work in adverse conditions, including far-flung rural areas, 
• feel guilty about making money ALWAYS, because well it’s a noble profession 
• take responsibility for anything going wrong, literally ANYTHING 
• in fact they’re supposed to be GOD

If you think doctors are akin to gods, then I’m sorry to break it to you but, we most definitely are not ! We are as human as the patients we treat. We are not magicians or wizards either. 

Please stop living under the delusion of your doctor’s capability to fix any illness that you may bring to them. Please understand some very basic facts : 

• We are your fellow citizens, the government doesn’t give us any special privileges for rendering selfless service, slogging odd hours, working in pathetic work environments. 
• There are protocols that are followed by doctors irrespective of the patient’s background. 
• We have no personal interest in seeing our patients die, trust me, we look forward to filling up a discharge card, and not signing a death certificate.
• If there is indeed an element of negligence on the part of the doctor, the medical boards have specified very strict punishments. No doctor would knowingly commit gross negligence at the risk of losing his/her practising licence. 
• Besides, resorting to violence, cannot bring back your relative, even in a proven case of negligence. Sue the doctor, let the courts and the legal team handle the situation. If the doctor’s negligence does get proven, justice will be delivered.

‘No physician, however conscientious or careful, can tell what day or hour he may not be the object of some undeserved attack, malicious accusation, black mail or suit for damages.’

The above lines from a reputed Journal from the USA, written 135 years ago should be an eye-opener and also prophetic. 

Last few years, reports of violence against doctors, sometimes leading to grievous hurt or murder, are making headlines.

And why has the violence increased beyond repair? There are several reasons for this : 

• We need a scapegoat for what is ultimately a poor healthcare system in our country. 
• We don’t have adequate resources for a good healthcare system. 
• We want to run hospitals, do effective tests, treatments, surgeries and medicines, but we don’t have the money needed to get quality in all these aspects
• We don’t value the excellence of doctors yet expect them to become a saviour of the world. 
• We expect doctors to take all the downside, get paid a lot less than people of similar intelligence do in other fields and threaten them too. 
• We call it unfair & morally guilt them and ask them why they became a doctor in the first place. 

It’s almost like abusing or hitting a doctor when the patient dies is a norm. Agitations and protests and doctors’ strikes immediately follow. But nothing major happens after that. After about a week of gradually weaning discussions and debates, the issue dies down, the Hippocratic Oath kicks in and residents and interns and all other protesting doctors get back to work, only to be assaulted again.

But if we truly want to end violence against doctors, we need to go deeper into the root cause of the problem & actively work towards changing the attitudes.There’s an increasing population of aggressive patients & their impatient and intolerant behaviour is a common trend. 

You’ll be shocked to know that the Indian Medical Association has reported, “ 75% of doctors face verbal or physical abuse inside hospital premises”. 

A cycle of violent strikes and negative media coverage has tarnished the image of the medical community in India, how? 

• Many people now view doctors with a feeling of troubled dependence.
• On the one hand, the general population is bombarded by unsupervised advertisements suggesting easy, one-shot cures, and oversimplified medicine. On the other hand, there are constant news reports (often inaccurate and judgmental) of medical negligence that continue to shake people’s faith in doctors.
• The many stories of medical achievement tend not to be reported as frequently as the few reports of negligence. 
• Patients from poorer backgrounds tend to accept whatever facility a public sector hospital can provide. The very rich seek care only in expensive private sector hospitals. Yet the middle class (which has increased significantly in number with the economic liberalisation of the country) is left in limbo. They cannot afford private sector hospitals for prolonged treatment because of the cost and yet they are highly discontent in the public sector hospitals, where the volume of patients is huge and facilities are limited.
• In a land where swamis and soothsayers make more television appearances than doctors, society needs a strong medical role model.
• The media needs someone who can educate rather than sensationalise and give the medical profession an “image makeover.” 

Understand !! No doctor enters a hospital with the intention of harming a patient, nothing can be learnt without making mistakes, and no outcome can be optimised in the face of limited facilities without co-operation and safety for themselves in mind. It is time that society understands this, and it is our job to explain it to them : 

• We need to work on self-analysis to diffuse mob behaviour; team building; systemisation; and reducing physician stress, burnout, and psychological pressure from treatment mistakes and failures. 
• Practically, the total number of classes currently given to developing soft skills in the Indian medical curriculum is negligible. 
• The present attitude of medical educators can be likened to an “old school” swimming instructor who throws naïve doctors into the water thinking that they will learn to float by themselves. The result is a ticking time bomb in every hospital in the country. 

It’s comes as no surprise to me that there’s hence a change in MBBS Curriculum after 21 Years. 

                         

Follows in next blog soon