Doctor and Healing Touch

Doctors have been since ages, put on the pedestal of being GOD, but in recent fast pacing world, where materialism and corruption has crept into every aspect of life, where everything is weighed in terms of money, where doctor patient relationship has turned into customer driven marketing, where I see corporate hospitals selling health packages and salesmanship at its best for satisfying their customers (patients), I wonder, ‘Is the golden era still alive?’ I wonder ‘Are we are deviating away from the original field of medicine?’ As a young doctor who has just entered the world of clinical medicine, the spectacularity of this so called noble profession has triggered many questions and it has posed many enigmas in my mind. This article aims to discover the unsaid aspects and so called healing touch of medical profession and the clinical experiences in this rigorous, competitive, hard, sensitive, perplexing, enigmatic world of medicine and it presents the perspective and analysis through the eyes of a young medico, for the question: ‘Is medicine going the right way or is it deviating???’

‘Has the golden era gone?’

“He has a gentle touch to wipe all tears

Loving hand to support all in fear

Someone with ability and knowledge to give advice

Someone next to God, who can save a precious life!”

This noble pedestal of being next to God has been given to a doctor who is healing the world around him or is it just an illusion or mere imagination? Has the world come to a point where in this materialistic post Y2K generation, materialism has eroded the true value of medicine, role of doctors often being confined to prescribing pills and filling his /her pockets? Is Medicine being chosen as Profit Producing Career? Is Profession of Medicine at the verge of dying?

Objective evidences for the same need no clinical experience. A very look at newspapers selling health is the evidence of health marketing. A newspaper article advertising hysterectomy at the cheapest possible price is tempting enough for anyone to think even without indication i.e. ‘Should we get it done as it could the best deal that is ever available?’ It may sound bizarre, but I had few young patients asking me whether it was a viable option!!!!

But there is no denying of the fact that even in this era of materialism and industrialization, even in this corrupt world, many noble doctors are standing up to serve the world. Yes, we have numerous examples of those moving against time and making a difference to others life with their empathy, wisdom and knowledge. I hope, wish and desire that young doctors of tomorrow may inherit this empathy, efficiency and humility that many luminary doctors of today have.

Having known and read about fake medicines, doctors selling themselves to pharmaceutical companies and many stories of disgraceful acts, I still believe that heart of medicine is still beating, with endless number of medicos rendering their lives to serve humanity. Is it right to disgrace the whole profession for the misdeeds of sparingly few doctors? With growing medico legal controversies, many false cases being filed by patients against doctors, with unreasonable expectations, with growing number of patients who are considering medical practice as a market for buying service on demand, patients demand unreasonable investigations and demand to prescribe their Google searched information without realizing their clinical conditions. I sometimes wonder as to why the doctor has to be blamed when the patient demands to buy health as a commodity. After years of hard work in the medical school, sleepless nights, relentless work, perspiration and struggle, is it unjust and cruel for a doctor to demand a decent life?

Medicine, which was considered as an art of clinical practice, is being replaced by technology- driven -investigation- based practice for treating cases. On comparison, it can be seen that old doctors spent time in palpation, auscultation and in trying to diagnose by feel and touch vs recent practitioners who prescribed pills to all their cases after sucking blood for all possible investigations and after getting all body organs scanned so that they did not miss anything. But the question arises in this medico legal era, ‘Where do we draw boundary line?’ I wonder whether we can reach a state of equilibrium or guidelines where art and the latest advances can be beautifully and intelligently clubbed together for the betterment of our dear patients. Is it high time to revive clinical medicine and to integrate technology wisely into it?   

I hope..

‘May the medicinal discoveries move mighty leaps, but empathy and sense of service doctors must keep,

For the balance between art and science, I hope we get some advice and guidelines…’

Clinical medicine is an amalgamation of many more experiences, cases, achievements and failures and of many enigmas and many unanswered queries. I hope that the naïve, perplexing, disturbing questions of a young medico find a platform and direction.

Visioning a better tomorrow, I wish for a paradigm shift where every doctor looks beyond boundary of his/her own pocket to deliver his/her best to community and to make the world a better place to live. I hope society will understand and respect the needs and limitations of the medicos. I wish and pray that all the doctors of today and tomorrow may imbibe care, sensitivity, affection, knowledge, efficiency and humbleness to save precious lives and to bring pride to the country by healing the world around them.

And hope the queries of a young medico will find some definite solutions, to see a better tomorrow…