meraMD's Doctor Community

Dress down for the occasion:

How would you take a hippie for a doctor! Or may be a doctor with noodle strap dress sitting in OPD in low rise jeans! Similarly a patient should wear only cotton loose fitting garments which do not interfere in examination, X-rays or blood samples.In India one does not change into hospital overalls or clothes so attire should be situation friendly. One should be minimally made up with weather permitting use of deodrants. No doctor would like to have his other patients getting asthma attacks or olfactory nerve tortured by your antiperspirants.

Always be on time:

After having fixed appointment, it is important that you are there atleast 4-5 minutes in advance..so that the front desk gets time to plan examination for the patient. In medicine it is not possible to move by the clock. .patients can not be rushed. Sometims they want to be only heard. .and examined. .so the schedules get upset. .most of the times doctors are on time but some patient needs more attention than ..other..There are ample reasons to understand why schedules get upset..some common reasons are ..child vomits in the clinic (it takes time clean up the mess created by a fellow patient)..child cries during examination..(has to be soothed)..old patient is taking time to undress and lie on the bed..some patient has rung up in between (so doctor gets busy with some other patient)..apart from that there are emergencies coming in clinic..

When you buy tickets for PVR that’s also an appointment which you never miss or try as hard aspossible. Doctor has sold his time to you. .without selling any ticket. .if you are not on time. .his time is spent….which could have been utilized much more productively. .so ..when you are not on time. .you fall from the list of favorites

Avoid being frivolous:

Every patient has complaints..that’s why they are there..but because of your complaints..being frivolous..your actual problem can be lost in your unrelated talk ..if you have diarrhoea..the complaint can not be about the ‘food cooked by daughter-in-law was bad ‘. Come to the point..that helps your doctor keeping the focus on you and not that u are not judged by your unhappy personal relations…. and ..misplaced.. problems..You have bought the time for which your doctor is charging you..

Then is the ‘cry wolf’ situation..you can not cry wolf everytime you come to a doctor you must grade your problems in order of severity yourself and expressions should be in proportion of the severity. otherwise if you cry hoarse equally for all probems. doctor is confused in prioritizing you in not so emergency situation .Given a situation when you come as if heavens have fallen and it is like mountain out of a mol hill..there is likely possibility that you doctor may not take you seriously. In subsequent situations.

Adhere to the advice:

Whether you want to adhere to doctor’s advise or not at least don’t be insensitive by blurting about alternative medicines being the panacea of all problems and his treatment being the cause of all illnesses and side effects under the sun …you have come to avail of professional advice and not bought a bouncing board.. for your life time to off load all your frustrations about medical fraternity….and the world at large.
You can be net savvy and that’s not the place to show off that how skillful you are in dragging out latest treatment from web. and also waving it in front of the face of the poor doctor teasingly Treatments are generic and not patient specific on web. which are often tailored and customized. to suit your disease.. and also yourself..

Telephonic calls:

The calls should be kept to minimum.. and shortest possible time..for professional advise doctor has to switch on and switch off. Switch on to give advise and switch off to go back to what he was doing prior to taking your call..

Repeated calls for the same problem is harassment for any doctor..he does not know what different advise to give for everytime you ring up for same thing ..you can take another opinion without being impolite about it..

Late night calls should be kept to only unmanageable situations. you have right to ask for opinion but then should have enough motivation to get up and buy medicines. late at night..lot of times patients ring up doctor about a problem and when treatment is suggested they postpone it for the next morning because don’t want to go through the hassle of going to a pharmacy dead at night. same doctor has to switch off ,go to sleep and get up fresh to work next day. Mentally you have done your duty by ringing up that doctor and then choosing your own way to handle it.

Doctor knows that he can be only as good as his last phone call ..patients forget about 200 phone calls received but remember the phone call not taken when doctor was sleeping, vacationing, seeing some other patient. or attending to may be sick family member of his own….Suddenly you feel that doctor was not there when you needed him. But have you thought about the same about his parents or children. Lot of family members of doctors will not disturb their own doctor son or daughter for minor problems when they are busy in work, thinking that patients with grave problems need them more than them. Doctors also expect same sensitivity from patients. Consummerism has given us lot of rights but medical professions is not about rights but duties and sacrifice. Sacrifice of personal time and space.

Carry your records with you:

You must carry your records with you..and not say ‘Yaar yeh INDIA mein naa aisa kyon hota hai..’..your records are not kept properly because you are not going to the same doctor everytime ..patients go doctor shopping .clinic hopping and appointment skipping like Olympic champs.. and blaming poor bharat mata for all their misery..ABCDs are more pron to this kind of feeling. You never get a reminder call from airlines, hotels when you book for vacationing .. or..Indian railways when you have booked a seat..so why expect reminders from a clinic for something which is yet to be sold to you..as in clinic you pay after using the service..This is called forward selling. Forward selling is cheap and not permitted by medical ethics.Patient canvassing and wooing is big no in some clinics so respect that.

Never be abusive to staff:

Lot is being written about back offices in INDIA and poor communication skills about staffers in call centres about accent and diction..the staff in clinic can be someone working for a living..you can not be abusive and threatening…..can you do the same to someone in a clinic abroad..

Doctor knows that he can be only as good as his last phone call ..patients forget about 200 phone calls received but remember the phone call not taken when doctor was sleeping, vacationing, seeing someother patient..or attending to sick family member of his own….

After hours work emergencies:

Never push your worries to weekends or 8 P.M.Doctors work like animals from eight to eight and also taking calls or seeing patients at unearthly hours ..there are work capsules these days and schedules ..every doctor is a human being and can work only in those specific hours pushing him to work more than he wants to is being insensitive.. you can demand to be seen by the same doctor in private hospitals irrespective of the time of the day ..Lot of studies conducted have shown that work efficiency falls as the day progresses.So if you demand to be seen at the end of the day then you are getting the same service at lower efficiency. Professional mistakes are conducted more at the end of the day or we call that as 9 PM mistakes.

So when you are pushing your appointment to 8 P.M. you are getting less than optimum attention from the doctor.

When you meet a doctor at social gathering:

Never pile on your problems on a doctor when not in his clinic.You can have his attention only when in patient’s chair. All medical representatives are trained to speak about their products while sitting on the chair of the patient as long term studies have shown that product recall by a doctor is maximum when product is sold sitting on patient’s stool.

So he is in a social gathering forgetting all his worries about patients and work and then he sees a patient running with his beer glass and trying to get advice out of him .This is insensitivity

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