Doctors and Plumbers ..Part II by Jamil Shawwa

The story gets complicated, that is the relation between the treating doctor and the patient, when the sickness is not related to one area in the body and it needs different departments and doctors to be involved. So, now you have few things going on, and each doctor has an interpretation from the angle of his or her field only. Here is the problem, you get an exam that would clear that very narrow area from anything bad and then you find out the next-door neighbor, and in this case, another adjacent organ is not well. The question is why that doctor could not see the big picture or even the full picture. The questions keep going, is it possible that they saw it but because it is not their specialty they either ignore or refer to someone else. Do doctors have the time with all this volume to give each patient the time they deserve. I really do not think so. Once there is a picture or there is clarity, you start looking for that doctor, if you find one, which can connect the dots together and provide an analysis to what needs to be done. I do not think it happens efficiently. The other day a doctor came to the patient and asked her if she knew what the next step would be and what kind of an examination is next. I am astonished to say the least. A treating doctor would ask the patient such a stupid question. Then after that or before that you have another layer of doctors who somehow related to that sickness coming and asking the same questions that other doctors asked. The patient is in dilemma here, to keep answering or show an attitude. Either way is painful. The answer I have is that those badly trained medical providers are going based on what the management company of the hospitals are asking them to do, a routine that does not make sense, that rob the profession from it’s glorious mission of saving lives or at least trying to save lives. So the patient typically with an interdepartmental sickness would be in a limbo of what is the next step, the doctors, each talking on his own, from his angle and then maybe at some point coordinate. Here is what it should be done from a management point of view. Once an example of that magnitude- the condition- arises, the hospital or someone or group should assign a point of contact, hub, a doctor of course, that would coordinate all activities and all information would be channeled through him or her and then to the patient. One voice for the many. It can be done, and hospitals should not talk budget too much otherwise they need to get out of this profession of saving lives and get into a similar profession or position and save toilets and pipes, and be plumbers.