Neeya Naana - Money minded doctors
There is a hot debate happening in NEEYA NAANA even as I write this - money minded doctors. To me the one book which would really be a benchmark on the corruption in the medical field would still be POSTMORTEM published by VIKATAN. To put it bluntly, most of these so called talk shows sound shallow and mokkai to me.
If some one pays Rs. 1 crore for an MD Seat in Radiology, he should be out of his mind if he is not money minded.
The only reason I watched today’s episode was because if the presence of Jeyamohan. But he too sounded far more like a ‘trade unionist’ than a yadhartha vaadhi…
There was this field worker who partly blamed the doctors for the 2,50,000 farmer suicides in Vidharba.
He could’ve just as well blamed anybody and it would still be appropriate - the bankers who did not extend credit, the poor law enforcement systems, the policies by the government, etc.
None of the controversial practices by the doctors were actually discussed and no requests to stop some of the practices was put forth. For example, why should doctors have a particular medical shop name in his letter pad? Why should a doctor see the representative from Ranbaxy or Dr. Reddys? Why does the representatives dole out free samples to the doctors? Why are doctors given television sets when he attains a target of prescribing a certain drug? Any mokkai student of psychology will tell these are powerful tools of influence used by the drug companies to manipulate the doctors. So long as the doctors are going to benefit by it, they are not going to mind it (because they are not saints) and so long as these tools are effective, the drug companies are not going to stop it. There is a problem, but the problem is in the entire ecosystem, not just one component of it. It was irony that one of the employee from a pharma company was quick in blaming the doctors.
The average doctor is as likely to be money minded as an average policeman, or the average auto driver, or the lawyer, or a bureaucrat. They are as much representative of the society they are part of. To assume any other way sounds far removed from reality.
Here would be my approach:
- Increase the number of medical colleges - private and public. For a country of 1+bilion people, how many reputed medical institutes do we have? pathetically poor.
- Pharma companies should be banned from meeting the doctors personally. There should be other ways to get feedback from the doctors community as a whole but certainly not on a one to one level. Whoever does not understand this should be made to read on ‘Reciprocity’ in Robert Cialdini’s book ‘INFLUENCE’.
- Doctors should be banned from having some fancy medical stores names and dignostics names in their letter pad. A patient should be able to get any medicine from any pharmacist. It goes without saying that pharmacist should be stopped from seeing the doctors.
- No ban will work unless the incentives are strong - both positive and negative. Just make the practice of ‘interacting with pharma representatives’ equivalent to Section 498a. People should be taken to police station on a ‘no questions asked’ basis for sometime.
Of course not even one idea to make things better was discussed in that talk show.
Bottom line, the age-old formula of categorizing one section of the people and targeting them as a whole has worked again from an entertainment perspective. The media can again position itself as the guardian of people’s rights. The social workers can use the opportunity to blame everything and anything - that is easy part, try coming up with solutions that work for all. For every corporate hospital which charge Rs. 300 for a simple consultation, there are several Dr. Thangaraj’s of Velachery who do service for Rs. 40 till late into the night.
I think there is an average median income that the urban middle class society has in mind for themselves. Any lucky profession which seems to make more than that will come under fire in due course. All sorts of morality questions will be asked. They will be targeted in talk shows.
On the other end of the spectrum, most of the duty doctors (mere MBBS grads) still work for a pittance when compared to the software crowd. While sales representatives from pharma companies can go about minting more money than the doctors even while complaining ‘Che.. doctors rombo mosam’.
My mom likes to watch all these talk shows. I can’t stand it nowadays.