The Doctor

What a doctor means to a common man...

A quote by Swami Vivekanand hangs in my pediatrician's clinic - "A doctor tries his best to diagnose and cure the people. But he too has his limitations. He is a human just like you and me. So don't elevate him to God's status if he cures you well; and please don't despise him if he cannot!"

A doctor may not be a God. But he is more than just a human. He is a prophet, an interface between God's will and a mortal.

A doctor gives back to the society in the form of a healthy, illness-cured life. We repay his debt in the form of lots of money! A doctor is rich, busy and our only hope when we catch some illness!

As long as the doctor gives you the right medicine, he is good. As long as your health is within the acceptable healthy boundary, you are happy. The real test for everyone starts when you grow very ill! Whose test is it? Its a test of time. Test of your doctor. Test of your patience. Test of your trust - in God and in the doctor...
Why are the 2 terms - God and Doctor being referenced together? For what is assumed generically, God is associated with religion and Doctor with science. And for whats assumed generically, can religion and science co-exist? My recent hospital experience has made me believe they do!

Can a doctor be blamed for wrong diagnosis? Can a doctor be blamed for forgetting to give a medicine or forgetting one of his tasks? If he can go wrong, he needs to be a very good psychologist and HR professional too - to handle patients who have been agitated due to his mistakes!

When my 2 year old son was hospitalized, my frustration won over my patience on the 7th day. I was yelling out at the doctors and scaring the hell out of the other patients sitting at the casualty ward. A doctor had forgotten to take the kid's blood sample at the right time and later my son was being pricked over and over again to get the blood sample, while I waited outside the NICU for 20 mins hearing him cry out loud in pain! As a mother, my action was justified. As a busy doctor with lot of pressure, his action was supposed to be justified. What about this reaction from a doctor who took the blood sample - "Did I forget to take the blood sample? No! Another doctor forgot & I am just taking the sample. You are not supposed to shout at me like this!" I wondered if doctors are a community or individuals?

Thankfully my son was fine and not in danger. But what happened to a 7 year old girl next room was very sad. She had to undergo a very complex operation. And it had become even more complex, since the doctor had given a wrong diagnosis earlier. There were chances that after the operation she may not be able to be a mother! Am sure the doctor would have cured hundreds of cases before. But one wrong diagnosis would have earned him lot of malice from the girl's family. What should a doctor do in this case? Bring in the "God" element? How can he make up? Does he need to make up? If he gets loads of money when he cures a patient, should he pay back (in some way) for his mistake?

What does a doctor go through when he makes a mistake? Is he very hard-hearted that it doesn't matter to him? Is he really a human that it affects him - so much that he cries to God to pay off his sin?! Isn't this situation ironical? We run to a doctor when we have health problem. The doctor runs to God when he has diagnosis problem?!

I make mistakes in my work. We call them as "bugs". We track those bugs. We do an RCA (Root Cause Analysis) of those bugs. We can debug and fix those bugs. And ensure such bugs don't pop up again. Yet we don't ensure a software that's 100% bug free! But - we expect the Doctors to deliver their service without any bugs!

Every year I have to fill out a form at my office. Every year there is a question - "Which was the most challenging work you did?" And I fill up pages about how awesome code I wrote and how well I delivered it to the client! I asked the same question to a school mate, Dr Pranjali Gadgil. She replied, the most awesome work she did was stitching various parts inside the heart of a patient who was shot with a bullet and a case where conjoined twins had to be seperated! Life of a doctor must be really hard!

I am an engineer who believes everything can be fixed. Everything is in my hands and I can do it all. But when struck with medical issues, I cannot prescribe myself any medicine. I cant cure myself! Doctors can do that - so they got to be those awesome species out there! In fact, once upon a time I was so awed with doctors that I wanted to marry one! :)

After my 8 days experience in the hospital with my little kid, I faced questions from people which I didn't have answer to. Statements which made me wonder what doctors are and how people regard them. "Why did he fall this ill?", "These days local doctors cant diagnose", "These days big hospitals cant diagnose", "Doctors only want to make money", "Couldn't the doctor explain to you the root cause?"

My experience sums up the following:
1) God exists
2) You need to believe in your doctor
3) And I must make one of my kids a God... oops, I mean a Doctor!