I wanted to suggest diseases in order to help doctors arrive at correct diagnosis. But the mindset of doctors is a problem. The behavior of doctors is as follows:
• Doctors don’t have an open mind. Their refrain is, “We are professionals. We know better.” When they are students in medical college, it is drilled into future doctor’s head, “Don’t listen to patients.” They forget that laymen patients can reveal something because they are the ones experiencing the symptoms.
• I think it is because medicos aren’t trained to deal with certain situations. When they were studying medical, they weren’t instructed on what to do if they come across anything unique/strange/unfamiliar. They see everything through the prism of known diseases. The culture of out-of-the-box thinking is not there. They simply dismiss the patient by citing some universal condition. I suspect that doctors suffer from ‘frog in the well’ syndrome. Just as frogs cannot imagine a world beyond it’s well, doctors are discouraged from thinking anything outside the realm of documented diseases.
• There are some ‘universal diseases’ which doctors use to wash their hands off patients. The symptoms of these universal diseases are present in everyone to some degree. So it is hard to argue with doctors. For instance, if anyone is unemployed and poor or suffers from cancer, obviously he would be worried and/or sad and obsessed about his problems. Would it be proper for medical professionals to declare it as anxiety or depression or OCD? The sufferer’s problem would be unemployment and poverty or cancer NOT anxiety/depression/OCD. Slightest of distress in patient and doctors jump to conclusions that it is anxiety, depression, stress, OCD etc. One doctor actually uttered this line, “Looking at the TONE of your description, it seems it is anxiety/depression/OCD.”
• Most doctors lack the patience to notice subtle things and pursue difficult concepts. They forget that many functions are apparently simple and taken for granted. But if there is a slight change in the mechanism of these functions, it paralyzes the patient. Most doctors overlook that some subtle changes damage the patient just enough to ruin his life but not enough for others (at least lay people) to notice it.
• So stubborn are doctors about the ambit of known-documented diseases that some ignore the symptoms present in the patient and thrust the symptoms absent in the patient to ensure that patient comes within the ambit of known-documented diseases. One guy who had ‘diagnosed’ depression, anxiety, stress etc actually told me, “When are you happy? Admit that you are never happy.”
• When you demand explanation for the symptoms not matching with diagnosed disease, doctors have endless number of excuses to brush aside the question. For example if the patient asks the doctor to check in his textbooks whether the exhibited symptoms and the symptoms of the diagnosed disease are same, the doctor replies, “Yes, in advanced stages of the disease, these symptoms appear,” although it is not true. It seems when doctors do MBBS, they are trained to churn out excuses. Some doctors even ridicule the demand for diagnosis i.e. leave alone correctness of the diagnosis, it would be big thing if they just reveal the diagnosis.
Examples of excuses doctors churn out. It should tell about the attitude of doctors.
1. Once when I began to complain about memory damage, pat came the doctor’s reply, “Everybody’s caliber is not the same.”
Explanation: Memory damage can happen to Einstein-Newton as well as to a retard. Where does the question of caliber come in this?
2. When I complain of doctors not reading the description of symptoms properly, I was actually told that it is because they don’t have time.
Explanation: My description takes barely 15 minutes to read. If doctors can’t spare 15 minutes to know symptoms, why are they in the profession of psychiatry then? It is their duty to spend time in properly reading the description.
3. When I suggested that mobile phone waves may be causing neurological problems, they asked one illogical question, “Why mobile waves don’t affect others?”
Explanation: Most people may be immune to effects of mobile phone waves but few may be susceptible. Thus mobile waves may indeed be the cause albeit affecting only minority of people. Why ask this senseless question?
4. If doctors make diagnosis of disease ‘A’ and I point out to them that actually the symptoms of disease ‘B’ match with my ordeal, their answer is: Both disease ‘A’ and disease ‘B’ are one and the same. If you have any one of them, you automatically get the other. Disease ‘A’ is the advanced stage of disease ‘B’ and vice versa.
Explanation: You cannot win argument with doctors even if your points are valid.
All of the above are real life anecdotes. Including the one regarding thrusting absent symptoms (mentioned elsewhere).
• After all the hurdles are cleared and if at all the doctor understands that the disease may indeed be something undiscovered, he would be indifferent to the concerns of the patient. He would not suggest the next course of action like way to contact clinical researchers. Doctors are like, “This is some undiscovered disease. What do I care? Tell him anything and just dismiss the patient.”
• Another grouse I have about medical fraternity is their blind support for doctors. They don’t see the merits of the case. They support other doctors just because they are doctors.
• I also hear sermons about trusting doctors. For reader’s information, initially for a very long time I trusted doctors completely i.e. for four long years during a crucial period of life. I took doctor’s words at face value. It is doctors who should be questioned why they make patients lose faith in the system by not giving proper response and clearing valid doubts. That is how doctors force patients to surmise that their condition is some undiscovered disease. For instance, in 17 years of consultation with umpteen doctors, not once did I hear a single sentence which I can relate with. Not once did I get the feeling, “The doctor’s description is reminiscent of my ordeal.
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