Treat the Patient: Not the report, not the disease!

Treat the patient: Not the organ, not the report, not the disease!! In the good old days, a Family Doctor used to cure all the medical problems of the family with a simple prescription costing less than Rs 10/- . Now with all the burgeoning corporate hospitals and ubiquitous Superspecialits, the Family Doctor has become an endangered species!! It is said “A specialist is one who knows more and more about less and less till he knows everything about nothing”!! These days, if a patient goes to a Specialist, he is ordered a battery of Investigations including Blood tests, Ultrasound Scan, CT Scan, MRI, Angio etc., costing thousands of rupees. Unfortunately the old art of diagnosing an illness by the bedside is dying out. And the patient is asked to go to another Specialist, simply because he doesn’t with that particular organ that is defective. Now this Specialist refers the patient to another one and so on. In the end, the patient ends up with a lot of Lab reports, Xray films, Scan reports, Referral slips and costly prescriptions!! In these days of Superspeciality practice, it is essential to remember that the patient comes as a whole and it is ludicrous to say “I am going to look after your heart only”. Every doctor should have a holistic approach to the patient and depend more on his clinical acumen and less on the Investigations to come to a working diagnosis. In fact it is high time the old Family doctor concept is revived!