Physician, heal thyself

Sandeep Sinha

Physician, heal thyself was the message from Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Art of Living founder, to doctors of the PGI at a conference in Chandigarh the other day. Pointing out that 65 per cent of the doctors have serious health issues, he said it was not inspiring and that they should learn to take care of themselves.

The spiritual guru cannot be faulted for his advice and observation. Today, we have moved away from the family physician culture of yore to slick hospitals in the private hospital where the care is so perfect that no attendants are needed and the reception area and lounge resemble that of a five-star hotel. The days when doctors relied more on clinical sense is also passé and there is more emphasis on tests and investigation, not just to arrive at a correct diagnosis, but also to ward off medico-legal complications. With this, the cost of medical care has also arisen and medical insurance is now more in vogue to meet the expenses arising out of an unexpected exigency.

All this tends to put more pressure on the doctors, who already have to go through long years of study to complete their course and then go through long hours of duty to learn and excel. And there is no denying that doctors are themselves very poor patients. Many of them experience what is called “Third Year syndrome” or Da Costa’s syndrome, arising out of constant exposure to and interaction with patients of varied hues.

In my childhood, when we would fall ill, our family physician would visit us at home if required. Taking out his stethoscope from his briefcase, he would sit quietly and ask with a benign smile, “Kya kya hota hai?” We would love him for that smile in our hour of sorrow. As we would roll out our litany of woes, he would listen with care and then ask, “Aur kya kya hota hai?” This would make us feel lighter and take the load off our chest. We would love this Bengali gentleman for he would do away with my mother’s strict diet chart of barley and biscuits in fever and ask her to give us rice and some fish too, of course with less oil. “So long as you are taking the antibiotics, it’s ok,” he would say. He brought us back from the brink so many times, in a very personalised atmosphere, that even today I bow my head when his son posts his pictures on Facebook on his death anniversary. Doctors were like your teachers because of the kind of reverential relationships you developed with them.

Having worked in my initial years for a medical journal on cardiology, one got a chance to see the doctors work at that Mecca of Medicine—AIIMS—in Delhi. One saw them in the OPD, cath lab and their chambers. The long line of patients, the peer pressure, the pressure from the VVIPs and above all, the risk of a wrong diagnosis, can all add to the pressure on them.

The work conditions in government hospitals is also not quite like that in private hospitals. At a civil hospital in my home town, I remember the doctor in the OPD write medicines on the back of a bank deposit for I had, for he had no paper. In AIIMS, I once saw a hospital staff pushing a stretcher with a bundle on it, nonchalantly smoking his bidi. Only when he came near did I realise that it was a body headed for the mortuary. It was all in a day’s work for him. In hospitals like the PGI and AIIMS, it is not just India, but Bharat too, that flocks for treatment. The great film director Satyajit Ray made his film “Uttoran” to express this dilemma. On the one hand, research has improved medical facilities, but they are not affordable to everyone, and the masses where it is needed more, is in a state of negligence. The flocking of patients for quality medical care at an affordable rate adds to queues and pressure at premier medical institutions.

Amid all pressures, doctors are supposed to be humane, or at least to show their human side—care and compassion— to us all the time. Sri Sri is right in telling them to guard against the pressure of it. A former boss of mine warned me before taking up a new assignment, “All those who come to you will come with a problem. Live well and have a pastime to guard against its pitfalls.” He was not a spiritual guru, but borne out of years of experience, his words had a ring of truth to it.