A Thought Provoking Interview With A Health Idealist

“A doctor is the DOCTOR for 24*7, the one who is never off the duty”

The father of Indian medicine Charaka, some thousands of years ago enlighten the world of live saviours by conveying, “A physician who fails to enter the body of a patient with the lamp of knowledge and understanding can never treat diseases. He should first study all the factors, including environment, which influence a patient’s disease, and then prescribe treatment. It is more important to prevent the occurrence of disease than to seek a cure”

However, this very concept has gone down the drain for many doctors of today’s date. For majority of the people associated in this field, the very profession has just become the money making medium or rather say machine. It’s quite upsetting to say that the wall of hospital have gone high, technologies has replaced the actual observation of the doctors, time has limited that doctor-patient interaction and artificially made pills over pills have perished the magic of the doctor’s touch to his patients. This makes me realise that long gone are those days when a gesture, words and an appearance of doctor was enough to cure the patients.

Recently in conversation with this, the idealist Dr. Sinchan Das, I happen to ask him a question who is a true doctor or an ideal doctor, to which he beautifully replied,

“Doctor is an ornamental title!, so one must be aware of their ornament from the core of their heart. For a doctor, just knowing the disease or disease-producing factors of a patient is not enough but rather they must also be aware their health, health deteriorating condition, geographical status, family background, socio-economic condition and many more. All these ought to be known to a doctor when treating a patient and these are the very factors that differentiate them from a physician”. This provokes my very image of the doctors in the current situation where medicine is the solution to each query of patients towards his/her treatment or diagnosis. On this note, I also remember the very word of health activists Sir. Dr. B.M Hegde “There’s a pill for every ill”, this is the very concept of treatment or rather say solution to any health related problems for every individual who have been leading a hypothetically fast lifestyle.

Like me! There are majority of the people, for whom doctors are not less than a God because they save life, deal with life… they are the lifeline when all hopes are dead. But the doctors of this generations are at rush, framing the profession to be some sort of lavish monopoly with luxurious house, expensive car and load bank balance under the roof of well furnished hospitals with sparkling glass that reflects the one who can afford it and one who can’t are not the worthy of getting that first class attention. Don’t you think this is also a kind of racism…why cannot medical system be one for all? Why the standard of treatment is based on the amount of money one can afford to pay?  

In contradictory to this very thought of mine, I once again asked to Dr. Sinchan Das “Then who are the culprit here…Are only the doctors, healthcare policy as well as governmental policies responsible here, aren’t the psychology of the patients equally important here?

In counter, Dr. Sinchan Das strongly stated that we all are equally responsible for this very situation today. Along with this, he also conveyed that current generation patients very much fickle-minded where they run in this notion that the doctor charging huge sum are the only standard one and one who charges less are incapable ones despite of their qualification or experience. On the other hand, Google Doctor seems more accurate to the patients rather than seeking consultation from the actual qualified doctors. This makes them to diagnose their own disease or issues and often medication as well. The level of hypocrisy among some of the patients is just surprising. On one side, they are pretending to pay ample of capital while expecting to get the free service while claiming to be looted by the doctor. This contradicts my aforementioned thought…After all why a doctor respects his patients when they are themselves not respecting the doctor in the first place.

In this ocean of never ending debate…I asked Dr. Sinchan Das “Then what must be the etiquettes of a doctor and why it is so important?”

 A doctor must be humble, caring, and must has transparent in understanding as well as poses unbiased knowledge. Apart from this, a doctor must have the hunger for knowledge where their mind are investigative and must not be guided by any biasness. It is compulsory for them to poses a clear concept regarding the diseases and the disease producing phenomena. They must pledge to preserve the very concept of holistic health and ensure to account them in their practice. It is necessary for today’s doctors to know that their every word, gesture, actions, style, attitude sings the tune of humbleness, gentleness and sophistication while realising it that being Doctor is not just the profession rather it’s a life. Adding to this, he also confers

“That an individual who thinks or account the profession to some money generating machine then I must say that they are not the flag holders of this profession”