“Now, the practice of medicine is not what it was during our times,” added our professor, at the end of an hour-long lecture. This was perhaps the tenth time I heard such a comment being made by one of our senior professors.
Are they reminiscing? Are they complaining? Are they worrying? Or is it all three?
Naturally, since the advent of modern medicine in the 1900s, change has been inevitable. The ‘command and control’ style of practising medicine wherein patients consider doctors to be gods and their words unquestionable has long since been gone and (thankfully) cannot be wished back.
However, there is one aspect which remained unchanged through the years, until recently. It also happens to be the fundamental principle on which medicine is based: that almost mystic quality called ‘trust’.
What I find alarming is the exponential increase in cynics and how we are responsible for it (if only partially).
I would be a liar if I stated that all doctors are always right. I am not blind to instances where sheer negligence on part of the treating physicians have resulted in the death of women in sterilisation programmes or poor elderly people going blind after cataract surgeries. Even situations where a doctor’s callous attitude causes pain and sorrow to a patient are unacceptable. These occurrences add to the distrust between doctors and patients.
The burning question is, what can we do about it?
Spurt in knowledgeAll of our medical specialties have seen a great spurt in knowledge. Even on a day-to-day basis, enormous amounts of findings are released from around the world. Keeping up with these new discoveries, our course curriculum, clinical rounds, lab work and projects while trying to build our clinical acumen is a herculean task by itself. Thus, as medical students, we are hardly equipped to pause and reflect on our clinical experience and relationships.
This has destroyed the essence of medicine. Our eagerness to master the latest technical skills or acquire the latest scientific knowledge has left us deeply impoverished as far as humanity in medicine is concerned.
Patients are more than just bodies, organs or tissues. Each patient we are privileged to help treat, lives a life quite similar to our own, replete with joy, hopes, dreams, sorrows and insecurities. Though seemingly insignificant, listening, really listening to a patient may help us heal the patient and not just treat the disease.
The medical curriculum in India equips us well with a wealth of information and technical skills. Yet, most people will agree that the quality of medical education and patient care is deteriorating. There have been proposals to incorporate medical humanities into the curriculum. Though the extent to which another classroom subject will be effective in helping us find our heart while at the patients’ bed-side is questionable, the intent is laudable.
Until then, thousands of medical students who graduate as doctors each year will have to learn to find their heart in the art and their conscience in the science of practice of medicine on their own.
It’s time to move beyond the pills and bills that widen the chasm between doctors and patients. It’s time to reconnect and re-build the trust with every patient we see.
(The author is a third year medical student, M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bengaluru)
