doctors and me

Every person has a set of his or her own peculiar traits which they learn or pick up during the course of their lifetime. Out of them some habits and beliefs when confronted with the outpours of reality and practicality get eroded while some of them irrespective of how irrational and baseless they might seem actually gain roots with time and.... with the help of the same outpour get firmly stuck in the grounds of mind.... as trees bearing fruits..... which again may seem useless to all other onlookers.

One such irritating habit of mine...I admit is my bias against the doctors.....my belief that they all are money minded and that they leave no opportunity to use you as a guinea pig for testing their new compound or new brand.... which they have agreed to endorse of course.... in return of something.....unless they are relative or 'true' friend of yours.

I know i am too harsh on them to hold such views against them.....I agree that there are good doctors as well.....I have doctors in my family also....and they are good....but call it my foolishness riding over my mind.....that if I don't know a doctor personally......I can not rely on him.....

It happens all the times that when I go to a doctor, even before I describe him the ailment, I declare that I will not take the medicines prescribed by him, just assure me that nothing is seriously wrong with me!!!! It happened when my throat was choked for 15 days with accompanying pain in the ear canal and no amount of gargles seemingly helped and possibility of tonsils was self ruled out. It also happened when i could not move my right hand wrist even to open the fridge without a shooting pain and the possibility of a fracture was ruled out....again by self.

I am recounting these absurd follies of myself not out of self appreciation or is it depreciation....well i am at loss of a word.... I do it to ensure that he prescribes me the least possible medicines and tries to cajole me into taking them with well explained purpose!!!!

My 'chattis ka ankda' with the doctors dates back to my childhood. Arranging them in a chronological manner will help my memory to innumerate better!

1. I remember a funny episode when in my 'bachpan' I accompanied my mother to a doctor who also was our good family friend. My mom after having given the prescription and paid the fees realised that it had recently been hiked. She obviously disliked the fact that the doctor despite being a friend was charging the fee and that too higher than the other doctors' prevailing fees at that time. She was suddenly overpowered by the 'Monisha Sarabhai' spirit (of Sarabhai vs Sarabhai fame). She asked him to suggest some medicine for me....I don't remember what....but I clearly remember was unnecessary....because I was not suffering from any ailment at that time....The doctor very casually examined me and....to my mom's horror wrote prescription on a separate letterhead.....which clearly meant another 'fees'. If he were not a friend.....may be they might have argued.....but as the history goes she reluctantly parted with the money......sulking all the way back home that how money-minded the doctors had become!!! Today when I think of that....i find it funnier....but nevertheless it sowed a seed of doubt against doctors in my then tender pre-teen mind.
2. Around that same time....may be few years later....my chachaji was preparing for his CPMT exams......and the wounds of reservation were quite fresh......may be it was in its introductory phase and it used to be criticized heavily among the elders of my family....that due to this reservation students who deserve to fail would get admission in a college and would become doctors.....concerns would be raised on the safety of this profession few years later.....my mind learnt another lesson that not all doctors can be relied upon. Till to date ( I do not know how to state this in a politically correct manner) I try to gauge the 'reservation status' of the doctor I go to.....unfortunately my very poor knowledge of sociology makes me doubtful of all sir names I do not know!!!
3. During the same period came a movie "love" in which Revathy debuted against Salman Khan. In that movie she had an obsession of trying out the reaction of all new medicines on herself. In the climax of the movie when she is on her deathbed, the doctors struggled to save her because no amount of medicines brought an impact on her. It easily fitted into my little medical knowledge that.... for every antibiotic taken... our body develops antigens to it and repeated exposure to medicines make the body immune to them....with the effect that next time you need to have a higher dose than before. Thus, from that movie I learnt to have as few medicines as possible!!!
4. That strategy luckily helped me and also God remained kind enough to me and kept me away from doctors......till I got pregnant. Now there was no escape from the one....so we decided to go safe....and zeroed down on a renowned hospital. We went to Apollo Hospital in Delhi. Now like all 'new-would-be-mothers' I wanted to do everything that was to be good for my baby. So, after the doctor had checked me I asked her to recommend me some exercise, yoga and diet plan....little did I know that the next few moments were going to strengthen my already adverse view against the doctors. She replied curtly to get the list of books from her assistant sitting outside. My pregnant hormones were not prepared for such rude response.....after all I had paid a bombshell.....well together with the registration amount, consultation fees, etc. it seemed like one.... and waited for centuries to meet her. I refused to go to her the next time.....luckily the next doctor whom we consulted was friendly, attentive and always made me feel comfortable.....this I am stressing to come clean that my demands to the first doctor were not unreasonable.....well she taught me that...besides being money-minded some doctors can be ruthless as well!!!
5. The last incident happened to a friend of mine. She was going to start the fifth month of her second pregnancy.....but no signs of growth were visible yet.....she would often comment to the doctor.....that weirdly she did not feel the same emotions as her first time....it felt to her as if she is not pregnant at all....but the doctor though admitting that though her uterus was not palpating....insisted that everything was fine.....she would just increase the frequency of her visits.....which soon became almost every second week....On her routine start of fifth month sonography (before that it was done in the ninth week...when the pregnancy was confirmed).....it was diagnosed that her baby was not growing at all and had most probably died in the ninth week itself....and since so long she had been carrying a dead baby in her womb.........That dumb doctor....I don't know for what....was that for money....or fear of admittance of her own efficiency.....played with her health, time and emotions......Her pain is still alive in my memory.

Now is it any wonder that I don't trust doctors!!!! I have even come across stories of doctors leaving a cloth or even scissor inside the bodies after the operation is done.....

I agree that not all doctors are bad....that is why the profession still survives....but i do not know how to find out a good one....especially with the nomadic life I live...so I want to avoid them as much as possible.