Yesterday I wrote about unprofessional behavior of Indian doctors but I straight away also explained a few possible reasons why doctors don’t properly talk to their patients, don’t explain them their diagnosis and don’t talk about their treatment further than telling them to buy and take their medicine. While I absolutely don’t want to make excuses for those doctors, whose behavior is unprofessional, even if understandably so, I also want to ask these doctors’ patients a little bit about their behavior.
I explained that there are people who come from remote villages who really have no idea that they have a stomach and then intestines, they just see that they have a stomach. If a doctor tells them that they have an infection in their intestines, they don’t really care. That’s why doctors stop telling their patients at all. But it seems as though even educated people don’t care that their doctor doesn’t tell them anything about his diagnosis or treatment! Are you used to getting treated like that? Is that the only reason why you don’t speak up against this kind of treatment or do you really not have any interest at all what is going on in your body?
I wrote that a doctor has a certain responsibility for the well-being of his patients. In the same way however you have a responsibility for your own body! You are educated, you know which body parts exist, correlate, are connected or can be affected but you nevertheless accept going out of a doctor’s practice with no more information than you went in with! And you buy a medicine that you have no idea of what it will do to your body! You will eat it, you will feel better and just think ‘So, what did it matter, he healed me!’
Don’t you see that this is wrong? That you are ignoring your own responsibility, giving it all to a doctor who doesn’t know more about you than what you just told him in the past two minutes? Doesn’t it occur to you that you could get to know your body a bit better if he just explained you where that pain had come from? Don’t you ever question what all those pills are for that you swallow blindly in complete trust? In India pharmacists often don’t even give you the package insert along with it, so you cannot even look it up there! No, you just stuff your body with them, without thinking of the side effects, the contents, their way of working and their sense!
The funny thing is, if you had told your doctor that you are opposed to antibiotics when they are not absolutely necessary, he might even have had an alternative! But you didn’t ask, you didn’t talk, you just sat there, mute and like a child, accepting whatever comes. How was he supposed to know? He will obviously assume that this is your basic attitude: ‘Hello doctor, it is your task to heal me as soon as possible. I don’t care how, I want to be at work again on Monday!’ Of course he prescribes you a drug that does exactly this – but may have some side-effects that will go unnoticed until, some years later, they cause your body another pain!
You don’t talk, you don’t ask, you don’t complain. I know there are doctors who are just not fit for their profession, who answer an interested question with an annoyed growl or a humiliating comment, placing themselves in a position higher than you just because of their studies. If you don’t complain about this bad behavior however, he will get away with it! He will get confirmed in it and nothing will ever change! It is wrong, get on your feet, stand up for your right! It is your body, you deserve attention and you deserve to understand what is going on. That’s what you came for and that’s what you are paying for.
Do it, try it and you will soon find out the difference between a doctor like the one described above and a really good doctor, someone who properly listens, who cares and obviously does his best to make you understand the medical issue in simple words, explaining the suggested treatments and the options for cure that you have. These doctors exist – but you need to work on yourself to be a good patient, too!
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hello to you all
I was reading your blog about doctors in India.
In January I was in Kerala and for the ayurvedic treatments I visit a doctor.
Every day she took my blood pressure. We liked each other, but it gave me a smile when she act like a Indian doctor when I asked her. What was the blood pressure: It’s good kamala. That is fine was my answer, but what are the numbers. Kamala it’s fine. She didn’t want to tell me what she was finding out of my blood pressure. We looked at each other and smile both.
Iam a trained nurse, a medical trained shiatsu therapist. I receive my lessons in yoga
nidra from a ayurvedic professor. This was my lesson of being humble and I liked it.
greetings from Holland. Kamala
Hi Kamala,That is a nice story to read and if it is just about your blood pressure, it may not matter much (although she should have told you when you asked, in my opinion). But if someone really has a problem and asks, the doctor should inform him or her – then it is not about being humble or not worrying. It is about a responsibility for your own body and, from the doctor’s side, for his patient.
Greetings from Vrindavan!