The MIL alert
Every time I ask the patient a question, the mother will respond instead. I tell them, next time why don’t you come for the pregnancy check-up alone? Why even bring the daughter; let her relax at home. They criticise their sons and daughters-in-law for not producing babies within the first two years of their marriage. I feel like telling them: if you want the baby so bad, we have the technology for putting babies into 60-year-olds now.
Question hour
I have also seen women happily lie down and get treatment without questioning what it is for. They should question doctors more. Stop treating doctors like some messiah or God-like being. Question them as you would question any service provider. Don’t stand moral policing of your body by gynaecologists; don’t blindly listen to whatever they say.
Dr Puneet Bedi, Gynaecologist,
Apollo Hospitals, Delhi
Fever beaver
People will come with common ailments like fever, and then expect me to give them some magic pill that will cure it in one day because they have to go to work. But the fever doesn’t know that you have office the next day! It will run its course for three days and then subside.
Dr Guru Thamaraiselvan,
General physician
Food fetish
I don’t get why admitted patients complain about the hospital canteen food! This is not a restaurant in a five-star hotel. We will give you the food you need to get better. The moment people start complaining about the food, it is time to discharge them because they are getting better. Till that time, they were too occupied with their illness to think about the taste of the food.
No more Doctor Internet
People often come to meet me armed with half-baked knowledge, courtesy the Internet. The minute I suggest a course of treatment, they talk about the complications of it and ask me if there is a 100% guarantee. How can anyone guarantee anything? You really need to trust your doctor. There is even an acronym for it IDIOT: Internet Derived Information Obstructing Treatment.
Dr Naveen Chowdary Tummala
MS(Ortho) Consultant OrthopaedicSurgeon, SWARAM Specialty Hospital
Skin sorrows
People in this country are obsessed with skin colour. I have people coming in with girls as young as seven saying that they want her to look fairer. It really messes up a young girl’s mind, ruins her self-worth. Especially when the negative reinforcement comes from the mother. She ends up spending her whole life trying to look fairer, often at a cost to overall skin health. I have seen skin destroyed because of the misuse of steroid-based creams to lighten complexion.
Dr Shwetha Rahul, Consultant Dermatologist and aesthetic physician
Phoning it in
One of my pet peeves is patients not putting their phones on silent while in the consultation room. So it’s always buzzing and pinging while I’m talking to them. That’s flouting basic etiquette! Sometimes they even take calls while I’m in the room and go on talking for 10 minutes.
Dr R A Sirsat, Nephrologist, Hinduja Hospital
