Goa: After the shocking incident of a private doctor being assaulted by a woman, the Indian Medical Association has taken up the issue before the authorities. TNV spoke to IMA Goa branch chief Dr. Medha Salkar.
Q. The recent assault on a senior doctor in Carmona has sent shock waves through the medical fraternity in Goa. What impact will this have on the doctor-patient relation?
– Assaults on doctors has given a sense of defensiveness to the doctors. If we have to treat a patient there are certain risks that we have to take for the well-being of the patient. I have to really do it the way I want, but under the present situation I have to think ten times before I take any step.
Q. Will there be any law implemented?
– The question is how the implementation of any law will help. After being assaulted, a doctor will have already lost his dignity, and short term punishment to the accused will not change anything. In my letter written to the CM I have clearly mentioned that the society is the sufferer in the long term if suitable action is not taken.
Q. What action has IMA taken so far?
– We have already met the CM and explained him about the situation.
Q. Is provision of some kind of security system or police protection considered an option to avoid such incidents?
– Permanent police protection is unfortunately neither possible nor feasible. There was also a discussion on installation of CCTV cameras, but the problem is it can be installed only outside, and not in a place where you are examining a patient and discussing certain personal things related to the patient’s health. But with the installation of CCTVs outside the clinic, people will at least have a feeling that they are being watched before they think of acting violent.
Q. What role does the communication factor play between a doctor and his patient?
– The situation is such that we will have to record whatever we have explained to the patient about the risks involved during the treatment, in order to take his consent before starting the treatment, so that if anything unfortunate happens to the patient during the course of treatment the relatives will have no right to blame the doctor as we already have a proof that we have explained the patient everything. Even communication is an important factor for a doctor, as sometimes miscommunication between a doctor and a patient can result into a conflict. Now IMA and also the MCI have taken these incidents seriously. In the future, we are planning to introduce teaching of communication skills because in a regular course a doctor is never taught how to sit and talk to a patient. Now these communication skills will be taught to the students in the regular course. Now we have started a student wing of the IMA in which the students will be sent to a camp where they will work among the people and learn to communicate with the people.
Q. Doctor is considered next to God, but when he fails, it is he who faces the wrath of the people. Your comments?
– One of the reasons could be films because of which people have created their own image of who a doctor is and what he can do. In films they have created the image of a doctor as a magician who gives an injection and the patient gets well, or in a movie scene where a doctor comes out of operation theatre claiming the operation is successful and the patient is out of danger, whereas in real life we do not get sleep until the patient is fully fit and ready to go home. People have to understand that doctors are not magicians and we too are human beings.
