Monday 16 November 2015

The State of Affairs of Medical Profession - Pathetic




The State of Affairs of Medical Profession & Pharmacy Profession - Pathetic 

1. When a kid is selected for MBBS he/she is
darling of everybody, but the moment one clears
MBBS/Pharm D the whole attitude of society changes. You
are supposed to have the maturity of a man in
the forties.

2 The doctor is supposed to only serve and not to
receive. Whatever you charge as professional
fees is considered a penal amount by the
patients.

3. In case the person has the slightest
acquaintance with the doctor, you are not
supposed to charge him/her.......or else you are
labelled as money minded

4. The doctor is expected to be available round
the clock and treat the patient despite his/her
personal commitments.

5. Whatever the condition of the patient,
however much he disregards your advice, the
patient MUST be cured; otherwise you are
alleged to be negligent.

6. Any Tom, Dick and Harry can threaten, abuse,
misbehave or damage property of hospital/clinic
with impunity without any fear of law as patient
is always the aggrieved party.

7. If any Lab investigation is advised and it
comes out to be normal, instead of patient being
happy it is alleged that doctor is getting
unnecessary investigations done for ulterior
motives.

8 If investigation is not advised and some
mishap occurs the doctor is hauled in the court
of law for being negligent. So again it is
Damned if you do, damned if you dont

9. If any tragedy occurs it is highlighted in
media with catchy captions to ruin the
reputation of the doctor without verifying the
facts.

10. All RMPs and unregistered practitioners,
NEEM-HAKEEM, lab technicians and even
medical shop salesmen are allowed to practice
medicine! The worse part is that the illiterate
and even literate people of India treat all of
these people like doctors.

11 Only doctors are forced to work in rural and
government hospitals (without any facilities) to
get the degree. In no other profession this is
mandatory. No lawyer is ever asked to work in
Gram Panchayats, no engineer is asked to work
in various rural projects of the government. The
government wants that doctors should not work
and settle in foreign countries but there is no
such demand and no restrictions on IIM/IIT
graduates.

12 As per NCHRC Bill, for a doctor doing any
occupation other than medicine is misconduct.
Why single out us? Are we not the free citizens
of India? Even so called busy politicians are
doing practice in court and involved in lot many
businesses.

13. Clinical Establishment Act gives power to
District authorities (without any knowledge of
medicine) to impose fine up to Rs 5 lakh and
even closure of clinic. There is no such law for
any other profession.

14. Medical profession is recognized as a
business by law, so the doctors are sued in
consumer courts . We dont get space for clinics/
hospitals at subsidized rates, rather we are
charged more. We give electricity bill, house tax
etc on commercial rates. Yet we are not
supposed to be commercial.

15. We have to deal with many govt agencies,
face harassment from them as they consider
that doctors are the softest target, e.g.
Development authorities, Municipal authorities,
Fire department, Labour department, Income tax,
Pollution department, to name a few.

16. We invest the maximum time; 6 years to get
the basic qualification, 3 more years for
specialisation and further 3 yrs for super
specialization. On an average a superspecialist
invests aprox. 12-14 yrs for the medical study
only . Compared with any profession, this is 3 to
8 years more; also compare the money that we
get at that time with other professions.

17 We work under maximum mental tension as we
are accountable, have emotional attachment with
our patients, work for long and even odd hours,
working even when we are not well. The threat
of violence and litigation looms around us all the
time and even harassment by Govt. agencies is
routine. The double standards on the part of
Society in general and government in particular
defy all logic. On the one hand they charge us
everything at maximum commercial rate, impose
different.