The Consultation Room

Prof. Dr. CMK. Reddy

General & Vascular Surgeon, Halsted Surgical Clinic, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

Chapter 81: Community service

It’s very important that the Doctor gets involved in some community service activity, especially for those practicing in rural and suburban areas. Medical profession has maximum opportunity and potential to carry out humanitarian service.

It may be to improve or establish a school, temple (any place of worship), play ground, library, instituting scholarships, public park, hygienic toilets, mass vaccination, community hall, main road, drainage system, recreation club, burial ground etc.

This gives an impression to the public that you are not just sitting in the ‘four walls’ of your clinic to ‘earn money’, but also interested in public welfare and leaves little room for litigations against you. If you can’t personally contribute, you may collect donations for some good cause, using your influence or become an office bearer to undertake such projects in the community.

Invariably, in the process, you will develop more likeminded contacts in the town, indirectly promoting your practice, besides the goodwill it generates. Our social status, popularity and wealth are the ‘gifts’ of god. He expects a ‘return gift’ from us by way of human service, to settle the score.

Chapter 82: Free service

In every profession there are three aspects, public or community service, job satisfaction and remuneration, in varying proportion, the first two may be considered as ‘outcome’ and the last one as ‘income’.

It’s natural that most of the Doctors in their initial period, focus on the latter two and start thinking about the first one, after they comfortably settled down in practice. Very few born with a ‘silver spoon’ have the privilege of thinking of public welfare, right from their early days, unmindful of the income.

Senior Doctors may designate one day in a week or fortnight, to offer free consultations to poor patients, following the same protocols as other days, carrying required investigations and give a proper prescription. By our influence, some concession may be arranged for this group in lab tests, scans and for surgery if necessary.

Such noble service shall go a long way in building up the image of the medical profession in general and the Doctor in particular. Imagine the impact and credibility of our profession, if all the senior Doctors emulate such gesture and will certainly reverse the trend of deteriorating public reverence on Doctors, to a large extent.

The public will be less inclined to litigate against such Doctor, since he would earn a reputation that he’s not ‘money minded’. After all, we are not losing much, except we are giving our time to the underprivileged population. Our regular clients won’t leave us any way, they will certainly come to us on other days.

Other areas where we can extend free service are orphanages, oldage homes, homes for physically or mentally challenged or destitutes. They deserve consideration by every citizen, especially our services are very essential and may be life saving to them.

Chapter 83: Getting lab reports by SMS

Most of the labs, especially pathology or microbiology, take a few days to get the report ready and it may take another day or two before it reaches you. Or the patient may collect it and see you next day. We can make an arrangement with the lab, to send you the report by SMS or WhatsApp, as soon as it’s ready.

It’d be nice to call the patient and inform about the report and outline further management. Needless to say that the patient would be immensely happy to get your phone call and hear ‘his master’s voice’, that you’re taking time to ‘keep track’ with his case, in spite of your busy preoccupations.

You can have similar arrangement with the radiologist, so that he’d discuss the findings of CT/MRI/angio with you, well before the patients receive the typed report. You may initiate appropriate treatment immediately, especially in emergencies like a head injury or acute abdomen. This will certainly project yourself as an expedient Doctor, ‘right on the ball’ in the management of a ‘sick’ patient.

Chapter 84: Alternate power supply

In the midst of busy consultation time, sudden darkness filling up the atmosphere, is very irritating and dislocates the chain of serious thoughts flowing with the patient sitting in front. It’s advisable to install emergency lights in your chamber and at the reception counter, which get switched on automatically, so the work process goes on without interruption.

Of course it’s ideal, if the entire building is equipped with a power generator, that goes on automatically, when there’s a power failure. Otherwise, you will find your secretary running around in search of candle and match box, but in the meantime, with presence of mind, the patient in your room switches on the light in his mobile phone, so that you could continue writing the prescription. At least, it’s sensible to keep some candles and match box handy in the office.

Chapter 85: Security

In today’s crime-ridden society, it’s very important to protect yourself, your staff, cash (day’s collection), other property and equipment in your premises, against violence, robbery or burglary. A single woman Doctor, working in an isolated area, towards the conclusion of her day’s work, when there may not be anyone in the waiting area, will be a soft target for antisocial elements.

If the consultation room is located within a hospital complex or in a ‘polyclinic’, their security personnel, close circuit television (CCTV) etc, should take care of your requirements. Otherwise, we have to employ security staff and install a private CCTV, to monitor the movement of people in and out of the premises. In the event of an untoward incident, the investigating officer can use the footage recorded in the CCTV (the socalled 3rd eye for them), to identify the culprits and understand the modus operandi.

It may be wise to transfer the cash on hand, towards the end of the day, to some safe place and not to wear expensive jewelry or watch, during the consultation time, unless you have enough manpower in the premises, for protection. This is also a main reason why Doctors, especially women, are reluctant to make house visits.

In view of some unfortunate incidents of Doctors being physically harmed by the public for flimsy reasons, it’s important to keep some alert assistant in your room, especially for lady Doctors, during consulting time. It’s advisable not to enter into heated arguments with any person with aggressive or provocative behavior and exercise extreme diplomacy to ward off confrontation. If you sense a hostile situation, never use aggravating phrases, such as ‘keep quiet’, ‘shut up’, ‘nonsense’, ‘get out’, ‘who are you to ask me’, ‘don’t dictate me what to do’, ‘do what you can’, ‘I don’t care’ and worst of all, ‘go to hell’.

The Consultation Room