Doctor knows ,but most people don’t
1. The number of deaths caused by breast cancer and road traffic accident are less than the death caused by Medical errors. In a 2006 study medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at least 1.5 million people every year.180,000 people die each year partly as a result of injury inflicted by the doctors. A study in 2016 concluded that medical errors are the third leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease.
2.Doctors care about the patients in a true sense. Most of the times they know all of the complications that may ensue from the treatment they are advising and inside they are truly worried. Good surgeons after doing a surgery cannot sleep without having a thought of their patients done in the day and having the nightmares of “What if…..???”. I know points 1 and 2 contradict with each other, but i have a reason for it . These medical errors occur because of the good doctors working in the bad systems. All we have to do is improve our systems.
3.Sensible doctors dont take trivial things like drinking water, passing urine,a day without pain for granted because we have seen patients with severely distended bladders forget all the miseries in the world after being catheterized. We have seen patients enjoying the first sip of water as the top most luxury in the world after 2 weeks of Nothing per oral physician orders because of tracheostomy.
4.Doctors know that opioid painkillers are not good for you even though you might have to tolerate a little bit of pain. because the pain might go away soon but the addiction for opioids will ruin the rest of your healthy life.
5.Doctors know that we as human beings are the most helpless and powerless not matter who we are. I see that on a daily basis in my practice. I have seen powerful, arrogant and egoistic people shrinking into nothing after a trivial trauma or disease. I am working as a doctor in one of the most racist countries. I deal with arrogant people quite often. Last week just as I was about to touch a patients leg, he stopped me in a derogatory manner because i was not someone from his country and told me to be gentle. Of course, i didn’t mind but it hurt me inside, because i was not talked to like this before in 10 yrs of my practice. Call it fate, my bad luck ,Karma or whatever, 2 days later I was sitting on his chest doing chest compression because he went into cardiac arrest. His half open eyes and mouth and his helplessness made me think about our relaity. We are nothing in front of nature. He was a common man. Even the most powerful leaders of the world are worth nothing in front of death.
