Humanize Medical practice! Medicine needs its soul back.

GUEST COLUMN: Dr N Prabhudev

Bengaluru Express
Bengaluru, Aug. 28
The only difference between God and a doctor is that nobody wants an appointment with the God! Even those pious god fearing persons hoping to join Him in heaven refuse to take an appointment with god. They do with the doctors to postpone the appointment with god!
Humanize Medical is a movement that started with the notion that patients are human first. Treating them need to put human aspects along with cure. Access to healthcare globally is dismal amidst millions of preventable deaths! Where you have access to healthcare, it’s expensive! Complaints of wrong diagnosis and unnecessary overtreatments are commonplace! There is more intervention than care! Procedures take precedence over personalized care! Patients and their attendants feel neglected, uninformed, dismissed!
Doctors have been cut to size. Society is less willing to bow to a doctor’s once sacred authority. The white coat is not so white anymore! With increasing lawsuits and violence, doctors document more than they diagnose and treat. Profits over people, costs over care have made us suspect! Doctors- were considered the priests of the sanctum sanctorum of healthcare. Not anymore! There is trust deficit!
We gave up our role as leaders in our own field. Over the years, as health care became more complex. We stopped running our own practices and hospitals. We went from health care practitioners to sick-care employees. We let the corporate’s collective greed drive health care. They care about profits, not patients, not physicians!
Patients are not uninterested vehicles carrying interesting diseases. The patient is not just a group of symptoms with damaged organs and altered emotions. The patient is a human being, worried and hopeful, searching for relief, help and trust. We are human too; we use our expertise to reach a cure with the help of modern technology. Our purposes are humble: “To cure as many, to heal often, to console always.
A patient places his very life in the hands of the doctor. It increases the responsibility of the doctor and is expected to exercise a very high degree of caution, skill and care. These days Diagnosis is faster and more accurate. Clinical judgment is missing! Modern medicine has lost it soul. It has become ‘sick care,’ and does not create health!
Patients are now “cases”. Just numbers! They are not treated with respect. Often not given the care they need. Commercialization of health care, creates a corrosive effect and has alienated clinicians from their patients. It has marginalized patient care- A patient retorts – I’m not a diabetic; I just happen to have diabetes, A Doctor to a patient – On a scale of one to five, rate your pain? Patients are reduced to symptoms, diagnostic codes, prescriptions, procedures and billing codes.
Mechanization, empathy reduction, and moral disengagement have contributed to dehumanization of medical practice! The eroding trust between patients and physicians has reached crisis levels from 73% in 2012 to 34% in 2024 – We have to redo the relationship. Empathy is more magical than biological. When empathy scores are higher, patients recover faster. Empathetic physicians are sued less often.
The media has always looked at doctors with a jaundiced vision. While a doctor is expected to be altruistic and above temptation. But he is not above suspicion, reproach and ridicule! Doctors have Zero eye contact with the patient – staring at the computer in front. Technology integration in health care is an unstoppable trend!
Patient is a wounded human! It only takes a smile, a touch, or a look into the eyes of the patient to make them feel cared. Patients are not just bodies, organs, and tissues infected with pathogens with complicated emotional and physical relationships with their bodies. Whether making a diagnosis, determining a treatment plan, or assessing mental health, active listening is the first step toward making an informed decision. But as with any skill, it does take practice to master. The future of health care depends on reducing cost and raising quality.
Effective listening leads to better understanding, a crucial component while taking the best decisions for patients. Listen actively with no interruptions, converse when needed in an amicable tone, don’t stare but ensure eye contact, Listen with a purpose, respect the patient and his comfort.
Doctors are the best!
We integrate everything best the humanity has to offer — science, art, compassion, technology, education, innovation to better the lives and the health of mankind. Physicians represent the most educated people on the planet! We remain on full duty in the most intimate, vulnerable and challenged moments of people’s lives. We see people at their weakest and at their most dependent phases. To help our patients let us rise in quality!

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