Eradicating the Epidemic of Authority Without Accountability

Among the myriad professions in the world , nothing in my opinion brings one so often to the status of a Demigod…or God himself as the Doctors. I have had the opportunity ( would never term it as good fortune…sorry doc!!)to have a closer look at the medical professions across the Asia Pacific Region
Being an Indian my exposure to Doctors has been much more in India , I have a few close relatives in this profession and I believe I have seen a great variety of these noble professionals, barring a few and in all such cases they were also successful and among the best in their field; I observed one thing common among the GP’s and the specialist’s alike is the tendency to treat Human beings as an object and not as a fellow being, and the air of eruditeness and the attitude that my patient and his folks are Bumpkins . This attitude is directly proportional to the number of degrees one has and how successful you have been. This was portrayed in a very nice manner in Munna Bhai MBBS.
I have always wondered as to why Doctors look at humans at objects and not as living beings with capability as much if not more than their own? A lot of times just listening to the patient and refraining from jumping to conclusions makes for a much more superior diagnosis and may also help save the patients’ life ; if some one were to tell me that that is an exaggeration, all I can say is “Dead Men tell no Tales” so there is no one complaining on that aspect so far..
A person usually goes to consult a doctor in a state of anxiety, he wants to know if anything is wrong, how serious it is and if this can be corrected. The first magic button for cure is to empathise with the patient, hear him out with patience, explain the problem in a way that he can understand and finally prescribe the right treatment.
Instead many doctors scare the patient with grave sounding medical terms, if he has to be admitted in the hospital, these Shylocks try to squeeze the maximum out of the patient, they prescribe the most expensive variant of the medicine so that they qualify for that foreign trip dangled to them by the pharma company. They pass the patient through every test and equipment available with the hospital , knowing fully well that these are not really necessary ,for this, they get handsome cuts. Not satisfied, some of these Devil’s in Angel’s garb also have tie-ups with diagnostic centers where the patients are “referred to,” to make more money. The hospitals do their part, asking the patient if he/she has medical insurance and charge them for everything on planet earth. I have seen discharge summaries for patients who were charged the fee of the anesthetist while the patient was admitted for fever!! Such professionals are no different from terrorists ; these are terrorists who are worshipped by their victims ; victims who trust these greedy people with their lives. The illiteracy and the situation makes for a perfect environment for these terrorist s to operate with impunity ,commit murder and make money which they believe will let their future generations live in luxury
This is not about generalizing this about the medical community, there are Doctors, who befit the noble status and there are hospitals which are temples of human hope, but with time these are getting to be by far rare and few. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong in aspiring to be rich or being a good business man, but for a doctor to fulfill his or her Hippocratic oath, this also needs to be tempered with the qualities of compassion, humility and human touch and these are qualities which are getting extinct in this profession.
In order to restore the glory and respect that is very much due to the medical fraternity in our country, and protect the common man from being plundered, murdered or maimed by a few bad apples in this fraternity , Doctors and hospitals should be held accountable for their actions the and the entire process needs to be made transparent with information available to both the patients and their families,
Yes, I know that many would look at this as complicating the entire process and denying quick medical aid to those in need, I beg to differ. I speak for the families that have been reduced to penury in the attempt to cure a loved one; I speak for the child who was paralysed due to a wrong drug or diagnosis ; I speak for the shattered families who lost someone due to callousness of a hospital or doctor . It is about attempting to eradicate the epidemic of Authority without Accountability . Our debate then would only be on where do we start…?

Mind Over Matter

It was one of those Friday evenings when all of the city is in a hurry to get home or some lucky ones got home and are rushing to party, I had picked up my old friend Ruben ;we were meeting after a long time. Before we reached home and relaxed synchronizing on our lives over a drink and some hot dinner, we had the city traffic to tackle. A young motorcyclist with helmet slung on his arm and meandering dangerously in the heavy traffic triggered off this animated discussion on way people think, the attitude and the human mind.

Human brain could qualify to be one of the most researched but least understood part of the human anatomy. The recent research findings that our brain has a logical facet and an emotional facet , is, I believe, only describing the tip of the iceberg in the way it functions and the “Fuzzy Logic” programmed into it. Yet, we ascribe a lot of what we do and how we react to our mind. Recall having heard clichéd saying like, Apply your mind to it or Are you out of your Mind?? Or better still , I had this feeling in my gut...all of this allude to the capability of one’s mind. Mind is the most powerful but least mastered aspect of human life.

Over the ages , in fables, folklores and scriptures the power of the mind has been spoken of time and again. We have had saints who could throw a curse which would come true. Whether it be the curse of Parashurama on Karna in the Mahabharata or the curse of Sharavan’s blind parents on Dasaratha in Ramayana, these curses seemingly worked and shaped the entire story. Actually this speaks of the power of a focused mind in influencing the universe. We have heard of the miracles that Shirdi Baba performed and many have experienced the power of Reki in healing remotely, all these are manifestations of the power of mind. A miracle is nothing but , science not yet mastered by mankind.

We have seen in recent times on reality shows how people can heat water by concentrating on the glass or a devout commoner walking over live coal are these not triumphs of mind over matter? In the book titled “Autobiography of a Yogi” there are references to saints who would do the unthinkable like creating fragrance out of thin air or get into the cage of a hungry tigress and wallop it as if he were wrestling a pussy cat!!, or the Swami who did not appear in a group photograph though he sat through the photograph session, the list of examples are endless. This means that one can control the so called destiny with one’s mind, then, why is that there are but a handful of men today who seem to have this power ? What does it take for a mundane being like me to reach there…wish I knew or wish some one would tell me in a way I would understand….

As the topic was tapering off we had reached the last traffic signal before reaching home, Ruben was jovial as usual, a brand new hatch-back pulled up alongside our car, Ruben looked at it and commented aloud “ The traffic around is not going to spare this poor chap, he is bound to have his shiny new car dented sooner or later” I’m not to sure if Ruben had finished what he was saying, we heard a dull thud; the shining new hatchback was shunted by a delivery van from the rear and had a dent on its hatch.

I was speechless…was this the effect of Ruben’s words, was this a curse or was this an accidental case of Mind over Matter; I wonder about this incident even to this day.