Healing by Doctor

¤ Diagnosing Your Doctor


Voltaire, the French writer and philosopher, once remarked:
"Who are the greatest deceivers ?The doctors. and the greatest fools ? The patients."

Patients may take the remark with a pinch, but in this technology driven age, it is a demanding job to decide upon a suitable doctor for one’s ailment. Precise standards of excellence are difficult to establish in a profession which is half science and half art.

Compare your choice of buying a stereo system with choosing a doctor. Buying the music system is a shopping process where you begin with a discussion among friends and family, visit the showrooms, talk to specialists and compare models before buying one. It is an equally complicated process of choosing a doctor or is it just a matter of appointment and then walking in straight. In fact, there is a crisis in doctor-patient relationship, and doctor shopping is one symptom of the problem.

You realise your foolishness when you walk out of the doctor’s clinic. You feel depressed and dissatisfied, unhappy and still unwell ? Did the consultation make you sick when it was intended to make your feel better. Goethe was not far from the truth when he said, "It is so hard that one cannot really have confidence in doctors and yet cannot do without them."

Gone are the days when doctors carried that capacious black bag, had the time to talk to his patients and the relationship used to be partnership cemented in trust, its primacy unquestioned. We trusted our doctors who cured us for almost everything. Till recently, doctors perceived to practice in a manner that maximised the comfort, confidence and understanding of their patient.


¤ The Changed Craft of Doctoring

Today, the craft of doctoring has acquired a different dimension. Innovative technologies and medications have widened our choice. This explosion of resources has reduced the doctors to respond by ordering more sophisticated tests and quoting results of patients’ verbatim.

The traditional talking and listening to the doctor has become outdated. Most doctors fail to realise that spending time with the patient and communicating regularly confers beneficial effects. Father of medicine had summed it up as; "Some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician."


¤ Medical Studies Proves

In fact, medical training should lead to the conviction that the primary goal for every doctor is to achieve an improved outcome for patients: that diagnostic and scientific investigations are secondary to the well being of the patient.

The medical profession has come to view the patients as a complex of symptoms and not as a whole people, who can be given an active role in the management of their own care.

On the other hand, most patients fail to view doctors as fellow human beings who are not gods. Think of Alexander III, the king of Macedon, who said he was dying with the help of many physicians. Occasionally, we hear about doctors operating upon the wrong eye or leaving scissors in the stomach. Visiting a doctor does not guarantee a cure. Looking back at history we find that they suffered a definite down in bygone days.


¤ The Ancient Rules Set For The Doctors

Chinese emperors paid their doctors only when they were well. As soon as they became ill, the salary was cut off until they returned to normal. Visgoth Code did not set a surgeon’s fee, but it did rule that if the patient died all fees stood cancelled, and if the death was the result of blood letting the doctor was to be delivered to the bereaved family for better treatment. The 12th century legal code of Sicily expected doctors to treat poor patients free, visit them twice during day and night, if required by the patient.


¤ Today's Need

Today things are different and times have changed. Today patients should try to know more about the specifics of medicine and diagnostic tests. Perhaps this may re-establish the doctor patient relationship. Patients should also limit their medical visits to that which is necessary, in case you don’t get well with your doctor, change to a physician who has a special interest in your problem or seek a specialist if you find that your fears have not yet been allayed.


¤ Doctor's With Diverse Attitudes

Doctors too, come in various forms. If you are lucky you can land in a clinic where the doctor is jolly and equally optimistic to meet you. A bad luck may bring you to a doctor who hardly smiles and answers your questions, is rather prompt in handing over the prescription to you before you complete your talk. But though warmth and caring attitude are important, a friendly doctor isn’t necessarily as bright as his smile. Likewise, a doctor may be lousy at chitchat but a brilliant diagnosticism.

In this day and age, it is a demanding task to decide upon a doctor whose name plate is replete with medical abbreviations, you may not understand to the fullest. Well trained doctors can end up giving second rate care if they don’t keep up-and keeping up is hard to do. It means reading journals, attending conferences and continuing-education courses, and interaction with peers in journal clubs, meetings, hospitals and medical society communities, often after long days at the office or hospital.

Begin with a check up of doctor’s credentials. However, it is not easy to obtain access to complete, up-to-date and verified information about physicians is all but possible. You may ask personally or begin with the medical directory. Is the doctor practicing alone or in a group ? Many feel that group is better as each case is considered by more medical minds but others prefer solo practitioners on the plea that too many cooks spoil the broth.


¤ To Choose A Skilled Doctor

Teaching and speciality hospitals tend to have doctors who are most up-to-date. These institutions have a large support team of medical technologies and the most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. These physicians are the most likely to be highly respected by other doctors and to have cutting edge medical knowledge. Moreover, they treat numerous patients and certainly practice makes a man perfect. In case of a surgeon, consider the number of operations he performs and thus his skills and practice.

If you seek opinion from current or former patients about a physician’s acumen, the feedback you get will likely be based on sample size of one. Other doctors may also be subjective since they themselves may receive referrals for recommending each other. The most unbiased sources may be local hospital nurses. They hardly gain anything for recommending a particular doctor. They can surely tell you who’s good, who’s sloppy, who’s not up to date, etc.

Don’t expect too much from your judgment. Medicine, after all, is half science and half art, a certain amount of it has to be taken on faith and doctors are there to put your mind at rest.