Experiencing Professional Egos of Two Medicos and the Story of Losing A Friendship Too!

This is a real life story and a real experience of my life that happened some quarter-a-century ago. When this happened I was an young professional executive working in a large company in central India. My family comprising of my wife and my two young children lived in a newly constructed residential area of the company for which I worked. Nearly three hundred families similar to mine lived in the place and we were all professionals holding similar ranks in the same company.

Those living in the place were all colleagues because we all worked for the same organization and mostly knew each other by face but obviously all could not have been considered as friends. Yet there were small groups in the community who could be termed as friends or higher level acquaintances. I too had a small group of that type and we knew each other more and had more unofficial friendly interactions. We used to visit each other in the evenings, had tea or coffee together while the men and women talked on various topics of common interests.

My family friendship group comprised mostly those belonging to my home state, Kerala. Because we were more acceptable to each other in our in cultures and mother tongues. In this group we got the opportunity to talk in our first language-Malayalam. And we felt some mind relief in talking in the first language during our family get-together meetings in the evenings after our day long official interactions in our second language, English and in our third language, Hindi.

Our company owned and operated many hospitals for the benefit of its thousands of employees and their families. The biggest one was a 1000-bedded high rise hospital with many modern facilities and this hospital was very near to the place I lived at that time. Our company employed hundreds of specialist medicos and medical staff under its medical department. 

While many people are too much enthusiastic about medical facilities and also are overjoyed when such facilities are free, my personal outlook to this was always different. While I realized medical facilities necessary, I have been always repulsive against the concept of medical profession becoming too much specialized and mechanical and moving away from its divine and holistic approach. The super specialty system of modern medicine have been turning and training medical doctors with least concern or empathy towards humanity or human feelings! 

Due to this, I was reluctant to go to the in-house medical department of my company for any type of medical aid to me or my family. We were fortunate that no major health problems occurred to us in those days that we were forced to seek the free medical services offered by our company's health department. I relied on a few private medical practitioners for all our small medical needs and was not much bothered to spend the money from my pocket rather than getting the same free from our own company facilities. The reason for this attitude was also due to the arrogance of many of the doctors and hospital staff who considered it as a great favor that they were giving out to the patients as if the free medical aid to the company employees was from their own pockets. During that time, corruption also became rampant as many company doctors resorting to preferential treatments to those who greased their palms secretly. Many employees also felt it better to resort to such practices to gain what they thought as higher value medical help by pleasing some of the specialist medicos in the unethical manner. So, the situation was that the medical department of the company had truly transformed as much bureaucratic and an employee was likely to get some real medical help only when he or she either personally knew some doctor or made up such an equation by unfair means.

I had only heard about the situation that had been prevailing in the medical department and I felt it better not to experiment it my self for good. I had a couple of doctors with whom I had better personal relations than mere strangers, but I preferred not to use such relations for getting some preferential aid from our hospitals.

There was an young Malayalam speaking lady doctor in our family friend group. She worked as a junior child specialist in our big hospital. Her husband was my college-mate and colleague. We regularly visited each other for our evening get together and were family friends.

My son was about three or four years old at that time. One day when I returned from office in the evening, I found my wife gloomy and disturbed. When I inquired, she presented our son before me who, I noticed as having a cut and bruised lower lip with blood clotting clearly visible. The boy while playing hit with some thing and got his lower lip wounded in the process! I examined it and with my own past experiences during my childhood days, felt this as not any thing to be worried much. The wound would heal up in a couple of days with some home remedies. That was my reaction.

But I was not going to have an easy evening. Ladies from the friendly neighborhood of well wishers began to pour in after hearing about the playtime accident of my son. They all had their own examinations of the boy and were too liberal in giving advises to my worried wife. Many of them had expressed their anxieties and accusations secretly to my wife adding the tensions of my already tensed wife. Some of them even pitied with her for having such an insensitive husband like me who was sitting coolly inside as if nothing had happened!

Last came our lady doctor friend. She examined the boy in a professional manner and declared her professional advice to me. The cut was not to be left like that. It needed immediate medical attention and she compelled me to take my son immediately to the casualty section of our big hospital without losing further time.

Now I had no choice. I searched for our medical cards which we seldom used and was fortunate to locate them. I took my son to the casualty by around 8 p.m. A group of casualty doctors examined the boy and opined that the cut need to be stitched and directed me to proceed to the first aid room with their medical advice written on the medical books. An old medical attender glanced the boy and the doctor's scribbling on the book and asked me to guide my son to lie on the examination table. 

To my horror I watched the attender proceeding to do the lip stitching on my son. Never in my life I imagined that this work was done by a medical attender! I thought it was done by a qualified medical doctor. I asked him about it. He told that for years he had been doing it in this hospital and he was perhaps more experienced than the doctors who were attending the casualty cabin outside!

We had no choice. In a couple of minutes he completed his stitching work on my son's lip, creating a bulging ballooned flesh bound by some black threads at the base. He directed us to present before the doctors and proceed home with some medicines that the casualty pharmacy would give. The young casualty doctors examined the work of their attender and approved it. They required us to return back after a week for further actions.

Seeing the condition of my son's stitched up lip, I had a feeling that some thing went wrong. But I was helpless.

Next day evening, our family friend lady doctor visited our home and examined my son. She minced no words. Her hospital attender had done a horrendous work indeed and needed to be immediately corrected by some expert surgeon before it became too complicated. She was feeling the responsibility to help us being a specialist of the same hospital. She knew that we needed her personal recommendations in our big hospital for things to move properly and quickly.

She accompanied us to the hospital and with her influence she took us directly to the senior most surgeon of the hospital. As a case referred by a junior lady specialist, the senior doctor was too professional in examining her family friend's son. He admitted that the case had indeed become complicated which needed to be corrected by a surgery to be performed under general anesthesia. And for that the boy should be admitted in the hospital a day before and all the medical tests are to be completed before the actual surgery took place. He advised the lady doctor to use her influence in the various labs to complete all the tests and get the results well in advance before my son was admitted for the surgery. While he was explaining all these things to his junior colleague, what I noticed specially about this senior specialist surgeon of this big hospital was the obvious display of his professional ego. He was making it too obvious for me through his gestures and talks! He was apparently least concerned about me or my son! This surgeon in his late fifties appeared to be more concerned in showing his surgical knowledge and professional superiority to his junior lady doctor who worked in another department in the same hospital.

And the process of medical tests began at a speed much faster than normal as the personal acquaintances and interventions of the lady doctor in the hospital helped. Completing all the initial introductions she left us in the hospital to get the test results even at odd time later in the evening as a special case so that my son could be admitted the next day for the intended surgery immediately thereafter.

While waiting for the lab tests in the late evening with my young son, I was feeling much uncomfortable. My common sense kept reminding me that all that were happening were indeed unwanted and unnecessary. The doctors of this big hospital had become too egoistic with their professional pride that they had lost what we call as wisdom! I decided to act according to my inner urge!

I started my vehicle and proceeded to a private clinic with my son. This was the nursing home where I used to go occasionally. The doctor who owned the clinic lived in his home attached to the clinic. I reached the place and the doctor came quickly from his home. I told him what had happened and what was in store ahead from our 1000 bedded super specialty hospital. He told nothing, but took my son to the adjacent cabin and returned back, perhaps within five minutes. 

To my utter surprise and happiness, my son looked normal. The horrible lip bulge was gone for ever. There was not even a wound. The doctor had carefully incised and removed the awkward looking bulge of flesh, created by the big hospital attender, from his lower lip, skillfully!

We were much relieved and proceeded home happily and peacefully. There was no need for my son to be admitted in our free service big hospital next day for a day long surgical procedure under general anesthesia as opined by the renowned surgeon!

Next day with a peaceful and tension free mind I went to office. There I called my friend and the husband of the lady doctor and told him that we are out of the problem now and there was no need for my son to be admitted in our big hospital for the surgery. He seemed to have understood our relief!

Though my son's hurt was healed, it was not the case with the doctors of our free service hospital. Later I learnt that their professional pride got hurt with my decision.

Our family friend lady doctor got her professional ego hurt because I proceeded as if to deny her out of way professional help. The professional ego of her senior medical colleague was also hurt because the case was so easily settled by a private doctor of a small time nursing home outside who had no professional standing matching his professional standing as a renowned surgeon. His medical judgement was proved silly by this family friend patient of his junior doctor!

They were least concerned about the comfort the patient and his family got! Professional pride for them was of more importance than all the medical ethics that they were supposed to have adhered to as medical practitioners! 

The hurt ego for the lady doctor family friend stood so high that she cut all our good relations without any further explanations. Her poor engineer husband felt helpless and he candidly admitted that to me when we met outside later.

We never met later in our life as she maintained the uncalled for grudge against me all through out later.  

I had written about this incident now only to explain to the readers about some facets of the complex nature of human beings. The human state of self pride and importance that we call as ego is such a damaging thing. Getting rid of such ego is something that humans have to learn and practice if they wish to live a life as a son or daughter of God!

I know that it is very difficult for many. I also know by experience that many people would not even like to become such sons or daughters of God! If abilities cannot give superiority over others what is the use of having abilities, they ask.

Their egos would not allow them to be humble and humane! Being humane is considered as a weakness in this world.

What a pity!

My Experiences and Encounters with Modern Medicine !

I do not know how the present day system of medical treatment got official patronage in most countries to be labelled as 'modern medicine' . What we know now is that this system of medicine is named allopathy which was named so by the German doctor who while practising the same found it not so good for alleviating the sufferings of the common people. [ You may brush up all about the history of allopathy here !]

Doctors and all those supporting people who serve in any field of medicine are special people who need to be admired by all for their services that they provide to other human beings in alleviating pain and sufferings due to illness or injury to body or mind.

So medicine men and women have been treated with great respect by all others. Those who have experienced the horror of illness and injury can never forget these visible gods who helped them to come out of the dread of death or pain or utter helplessness caused by their failed bodies and minds. If they could, they would be too happy to do anything for their doctors in return. This high regard and respect of the patients towards the doctors caused the doctors gaining a high position in the society, both in stature and wealth.

Very soon the modern medical field became the arena for all those who want to become rich and famous in the easiest manner by encashing the fear and helplessness of the sick, wounded and the dying.

There are unscrupulous people in all walks of life. Medical service field is no exception.

When there was not much opportunity for big money making, but only scope for earning the respect of the people, those who opted for learning medicine and becoming medical professionals were driven by the passion of service and empathy towards those suffered.

But some unscrupulous business people with the help of ignorant and complacent law makers soon made medical service field a goldmine of opportunity for making quick money from the helplessness of people suffering from diseases, malnutrition, genetic disorders and man made disasters.

The modern medicine branded as the allopathic system of medicine took the lead in transforming medical service into a money making business. Regrettably other systems of medicine too are are going forward in the allopathic way now.

Sufferings of mankind have become the market potential for those who didnot find anything wrong with making the human body a commodity of immense opportunities ! They are worse than the wild animals who might occasionally kill a human for their food !

This transformation is taking place in my beloved country too. This must be stopped. Unscrupulous elements must be prevented from taking the ultimate control of the medical services field.

To do that our concepts and ideas about the medical services need to be pragmatic, to begin with.

Let me discuss some such concepts and a few associated experiences that I have:

Concept-1 : Allopathic doctors or specialists are well trained and educated people and they know more than us about diseases and medicines.

Not always true. There are many doctors who happened to have obtained their medical degrees somehow without proper learning. Many of them also do not update their medical knowledge and are pitifully low in their common sense and basic skills. All doctors cannot be trusted fully under such a situation. It is better to have their opinions and advice varified by other means including seeking second or third opinions. I have come across doctors and specialist serving in big hospitals who do not know how to take the blood pressure of a patient properly or to interpret it. More damaging is their ignorance about the various medicines they prescribe to the patients. What they know about these medicines are what the medical representatives have told them. There also exists an unholy nexus between the medicine manufacturers (pharma companies), the druggists and the doctors.

Concept-2 : Big five star hospitals provide the best medical service. Not true always. Their charges could be five star rated, but not the services they provide. The bigger the hospital, the bigger the chances for negligence and fatal errors. Most often the hospital supporting staff are underpaid and exploited in such hospitals. A friend of mine who was otherwise well built and healthy became an unfortunate victim of such an error in a big five star hospital. He suffered from a viral influenza and had a severe cough for a few days. He was forced by his near and dear ones to go for a medical check up in a good hospital which made him visit this hospital as an out patient. The hospital people for one full day forced him to run here and there from morning to evening to carry out various tests ( a thing a good experienced family physician of yester years would need to assess the patient's condition!) By this exertion coupled with his cough and low fever made him further weak making the hospital admitting him as an inpatient. A drip and an oxygen mask were routinely fitted and a sedative was administered for him to remain remain motionless on the hospital bed for the night without disturbing any one. The sedative caused stomach convulsions causing him to vomit with the mask covering his mouth and nose and the vomit entering his lungs straight away. No one noticed immediately and when noticed some time in the night he had already dead almost. The hospital authorities kept this a secret to the extent possible and declared him of having a cardiac arrest in the night and kept him on artificial respiration for a few days there after only to remove the respirator later and declare him officially dead when they felt that his family would not be in a position now to pay the huge medical bills.

Concept-3: Surgical methods are the best treatments for getting a new lease of life for some more years and one must do it if you can afford at the earliest. A highly erroneous idea propagated by the so called modern hospitals. No surgery is safe and the chances are always 50:50. [ You have to sign the papers of agreement with these conditions at the last moment !] There exist non-invasive treatiments in other systems which might provide similar or better relief ! Only when the body is severely wounded, or non responsive otherwise, surgery  should be thought of. I know a few people who have been recommended for open heart surgeries some twenty years ago but didnot submit to it and living even now heartily !

Concept-4 : Expensive medicines are the best in effecting a cure. Not true always. On the contrary, expensive medicines can aggravate the situation and may even cause drug induced problems that could be even fatal.

Concept-4: Allopathy is scientific and all other medicine systems are quackeries. There is no substance in this. If you analyze the systems with objectively and with an unbiased mind, you find that all systems are equally good or equally bad. It is better to chose the system depending upon the ailment. Sticking to any one system stubbornly is foolish. I have found all the existing medical systems useful to some extent. It is better to keep it in mind that no system can extent your life beyond what God has determined!

Concept-5 : The more the tests the better the doctors understand the ailment and the treatment. Not always true. Tests do provide some information but it is wrong to assume that all kinds of tests are required for deciding the treatment course. Many times patients are required to undergo various kinds of tests for various reasons not always linked to the treatment. It is also important to keep it in mind that some invasive tests might cause more damage than good in some cases.

Concept-6 : There is a cure for all diseases and ailments in modern medicine if you can spend the money. Totally false. There are many diseases and health problems for which no system of medicine can provide a total solution.

There are more such things.

My only submission to my readers is to be cautious and careful when you or some relative or friend of yours need a medical assistance in the present day situation.

Be careful not to get entrapped helplessly in modern day hospitals established for the sole purpose of extracting money from the suffering people and suck out their life time earnings.

Some of those magnificent buildings out there posing as modern hospitals can turn out to be physical and financial death traps to some !

   

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