The Good and the Bad!!!
Firstly, sorry if this sounds like babbling. But I'm just writing my thoughts as they come. Now onto the post.
Firstly, the good. Proud to be an Indian in many ways!!! It is incredible how many westerners think our country is backwards, generally out of ignorance. It is incredible how many people assume USA, Australia, Europe, and Canada are the only places where modern medicine exists. But this is simply not the case. Yes, there may be less airconditioning, but I suppose this is a property of energy conservation. In a country of 1 billion plus it is not always easy to have centralized A/C and other things we take for granted in the USA. But this I almost expected having been to India several times in my past, most memorable trips being in 1994 and 2007. In India, the a/c and certain comforts may not be there, but for the most part the hospital system is not that different. They have an EMR system, its just that no one uses it except to check lab results. Again, I suppose this is because most are not taught two hand typing. They have the same departments and clinic days vs. ward days vs. grand rounds just like us. The difference is their grand rounds is not just a powerpoint presentation of different cases but rather going on the rounds itself. And most surprising of all, they had journal club. This was surprising because in many parts of india, medical schools don't have journal clubs or literature reviews due to lack of research activity. This last point is one that was made by my ex roommate (a Mumbai dental graduate) and one made by the bollywood "Three Idiots". CMC, in this respect, has shown that they are quite advanced in that they have access to the best US medical journals and what not. But overall, the structure was very similar to the US system for residency. Something else that was different was that they had fields of medicine that specialized in physiology and pharmacology. This is not something we have in America.
But the most striking thing to me as far as the good goes is the following........ Doctors in India don't use middle men. They don't have CNA, MA, PCT, etc. They perform the vitals on the patients by themselves, take time to actually give a thorough patient history and physical exam, not just spend 15 minutes with patients. Here there are no insurance companies pushing doctors around telling them they can't perform a certain test or only have 15 minutes to see a patient or trying to pass a physician's job to another allied healthcare professional. USA could learn a lot from such. It makes it more personalized. But there's a downside too. I'll come back to that. Also they finish with each patient before going onto the next one, not like my doctor at home who just saw me for five minutes then makes me wait for 15 minutes only to come back for 5 min. more to see me. This impresses me much.
Some more notable things about India--> medicines are cheaper here because this was a socialist country to some extent, procedures are cheaper here, healthcare overall is cheaper here. This is the very basis behind medical tourism that drives rich from developed nations to come here (medical tourism).
Now for the bad...... I suppose I expected that there would be more interaction and teaching on the part of the physicians we observed. it seems that many of these residents and interns are kind of uninterested and that sometimes we feel like we are getting in the way. Though the pathology is unique compared to what we see in the states the ability to get the full picture is a bit tough because physicians seem uninterested in taking the time to explain and sometimes have a bit of an attitude. of course this could be because they are just soooooo busy and overworked. You really truly learn to appreciate that the complaints of billing issues, lack of payments by many, endless time spent on paperwork documenting everything, and feelings of being overworked are not unique to American physicians but true to all physicians everywhere. Next time I hear a physician complain about their life in america, I will find myself remembering the conditions of my own birth nation and find myself thankful for what I have.
Firstly, sorry if this sounds like babbling. But I'm just writing my thoughts as they come. Now onto the post.
Firstly, the good. Proud to be an Indian in many ways!!! It is incredible how many westerners think our country is backwards, generally out of ignorance. It is incredible how many people assume USA, Australia, Europe, and Canada are the only places where modern medicine exists. But this is simply not the case. Yes, there may be less airconditioning, but I suppose this is a property of energy conservation. In a country of 1 billion plus it is not always easy to have centralized A/C and other things we take for granted in the USA. But this I almost expected having been to India several times in my past, most memorable trips being in 1994 and 2007. In India, the a/c and certain comforts may not be there, but for the most part the hospital system is not that different. They have an EMR system, its just that no one uses it except to check lab results. Again, I suppose this is because most are not taught two hand typing. They have the same departments and clinic days vs. ward days vs. grand rounds just like us. The difference is their grand rounds is not just a powerpoint presentation of different cases but rather going on the rounds itself. And most surprising of all, they had journal club. This was surprising because in many parts of india, medical schools don't have journal clubs or literature reviews due to lack of research activity. This last point is one that was made by my ex roommate (a Mumbai dental graduate) and one made by the bollywood "Three Idiots". CMC, in this respect, has shown that they are quite advanced in that they have access to the best US medical journals and what not. But overall, the structure was very similar to the US system for residency. Something else that was different was that they had fields of medicine that specialized in physiology and pharmacology. This is not something we have in America.
But the most striking thing to me as far as the good goes is the following........ Doctors in India don't use middle men. They don't have CNA, MA, PCT, etc. They perform the vitals on the patients by themselves, take time to actually give a thorough patient history and physical exam, not just spend 15 minutes with patients. Here there are no insurance companies pushing doctors around telling them they can't perform a certain test or only have 15 minutes to see a patient or trying to pass a physician's job to another allied healthcare professional. USA could learn a lot from such. It makes it more personalized. But there's a downside too. I'll come back to that. Also they finish with each patient before going onto the next one, not like my doctor at home who just saw me for five minutes then makes me wait for 15 minutes only to come back for 5 min. more to see me. This impresses me much.
Some more notable things about India--> medicines are cheaper here because this was a socialist country to some extent, procedures are cheaper here, healthcare overall is cheaper here. This is the very basis behind medical tourism that drives rich from developed nations to come here (medical tourism).
Now for the bad...... I suppose I expected that there would be more interaction and teaching on the part of the physicians we observed. it seems that many of these residents and interns are kind of uninterested and that sometimes we feel like we are getting in the way. Though the pathology is unique compared to what we see in the states the ability to get the full picture is a bit tough because physicians seem uninterested in taking the time to explain and sometimes have a bit of an attitude. of course this could be because they are just soooooo busy and overworked. You really truly learn to appreciate that the complaints of billing issues, lack of payments by many, endless time spent on paperwork documenting everything, and feelings of being overworked are not unique to American physicians but true to all physicians everywhere. Next time I hear a physician complain about their life in america, I will find myself remembering the conditions of my own birth nation and find myself thankful for what I have.
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