The Attending Doctor

A phone bell rang and we were trying to figure out where the sound was coming from when we noticed that it was from our new phone. On picking the phone the caller asks us whether we could provide a doctor in Gurgaon for her ninety nine-year-old mother Mrs. Grace . We were all excited to see the 1st response to our new venture within hours of advertisement and quickly noted down the details. I have been seeing many patients at home but the excitement to see the 1st patient for the company started by me was different.  Our first patient was a lovely ninety-nine-year-old young lady who had apparently no illness at all. I walk up the stairs to the first floor and am ushered into a room where a frail but beautiful lady is lying on one side of the bed. The attendant seemed very relieved seeing me and rushed to my side and says” she has not been eating anything since the morning and we are all worried”. The daughter is seated on the bed next to her mother seemingly worried and looks at me with a mixed expression of despair and apprehension. I have done several home visits in the past but seem to be nervous during every visit as each and every home visit is a unique experience and this was the first home visit for our new healthcare business.  

The daughter announces to her mother that the doctor is here to which Mrs. Grace looks at me. I start my conversation with Mrs. Grace by talking to her near her ears and asking her how she was. She gestures to me that she is doing well and asks me how I was. After 15 minutes of history taking and examination, I have been able to build a rapport with my patient and she starts talking me as if she knows me for ages. There is a twinkle in her eyes every time she smiles which has always etched into my memory. This ninety-nine-year-old beautiful lady has been refusing to eat for the past few days and I have to do something about it. I slowly start gaining the confidence of Mrs. Grace and I tell her that I shall not leave till she eats something. As doctors, we are trained to fish for diseases, treat diseases by pushing pills and I could do nothing of that sort which made me wonder whether I would be justifying the fees that we are charging. Mrs. Grace eventually agrees to eat and the whole house is excited to hear the news. The attendant quickly gets something to eat and with every morsel that she eats,  Mrs. Grace she looks at me and smiles.

I quickly scribble my notes on the prescription pad but am struggling to fill the section meant for medicines and then the doctor in me takes over and I write a multi-vitamin supplement to avoid keeping that area blank.

Our first patient ( should I use a different name like a client/ customer) was a ninety-nine-year-old lady with no past history of any disease,  the medical management was observing her eat her supper and I had no medicines to prescribe for her. I am wondering how many people would pay me for being an onlooker. 

The Power of the Ordinary

When I embarked upon the thought of typing down my thoughts, it struck me that our stories will not have the macho activities of a highly skilled surgeon or the lifesaving techniques of a specialist physician and descriptions of a busy hospital. There would be no operation theatres or intensive care settings where the nearly dead would be brought to life. Our stories will hover around the ordinary life of a family doctor who is skilled enough to take care of everyday illnesses. Our stories will be different from the esoteric stories seen in many doctor-centric television serials and will not have doctors walking around in their hospital pajamas or white coats with nurses around them. Our doctors are general practitioners (some call them family physicians) who live in the society alongside patients and are the first point of contact for many seekers of medical care. Many of these doctors work in resource constraint situations are paid very less and have to depend only on their clinical skills to treat patients. Some of these doctors work in different shifts in hospitals and are paid measly amounts as salaries. In the hospitals, many of the doctors in my stories are kept at the lowest rung in the hierarchy of doctors and end up looking after patients of the “consultants”.

We have tried to bring stories of medical action from the homes of our patients, in the surroundings familiar to them. The stories may lack the mystical charm expected out of the super intelligent, super suave, consultants from the air-conditioned chambers in hospitals who can create magic in medical care. I believe in the “power of the ordinary” to transform medical care in India, therefore our stories revolve around the ordinary GP who lives an ordinary life and is “only” a GP or a family doctor!