How Honest Is Your Doctor?

They say never hide from a ‘Teacher’, ‘Lawyer’, ‘Cop’ and a ‘Doctor’. And if you do, your luck will ran out…sooner or later.

In Medical Profession it’s crystal that wave of Privatisation has lead to a fierce competition amongst budding medical / mid / Senior level professionals to be recoginzed as best surgeon or best doctor on social media platforms or electronic media or so on.

In India - We have witnessed a boom in the healthcare industry, brand new and state of the art hospitals are coming up at different tier level cities, JCI hospital accreditation has increased, NABH / NABL bodies are reaching out to hospitals in one or other way to certify them on the quality auditing etc.

“Therefore all said and done - It comes down to two important tools; Product and End User”.

Product of the hospital | Doctor and
End User | Patient

Patients by default consider thier doctors to be the most professional and honest human being on Planet Earth and some even mortagage their homes, land, borrow money from various sources to fulfill the cost expenditure of the treatment.

‘But what if the treatment prescribed is not even required..”

#Orthopaedics treatment - You should be very careful and alert to take best of 3 opinions for knee replacement and hip replacement procedures.

#Spine Surgery treatment - all spine surgery cases are not surgical and in fact surgery is the last resort if your conservative medical management has failed irrespective of the age factor. Make sure you visit the right best spine surgeon having in depth experiences in treating similar cases like your suffering.

#Brain Tumor treatment - They are the most critical / tricky due to spreading of the mass in the brain area. Your neurosurgeon will always contemplate on the decision making to either remove the whole of the tumor or refer to radiosurgery treatment i.e. non-invasive method of treat brain tumors. Tell him / her to be very straight forward with you instead of giving positive looking statements.

#Cardiac Stenting procedures - The blockage artery percentage determines the decision making for Angioplasty procedures. The range is clearly defined by the medical bodies. In case of medical emergency situations like a very different kind of pain in the chest area, excessive sweating, extreme lethargy and difficulty in breathing are the symptoms for stent procedure due to blockage of higher percentage i.e. >70-80.

#Cancer cases for chemotherapy sessions. Needless chemo drugs are prescribed to patients without knowing the outcomes / secondary reaction of using them on the other human body funtions or suggestion of quality life survival time.

#Stem Cell” treatment package available across the world to make cheap and unethical money to bank on desperate patients.


…….. So why your doctor is not telling the truth? There could be different reasons / set of explanations:

|Don’t want to disclose the bad news - Intention is Good in such cases
|Don’t want to loose the patient
|Target Pressure
|Competition
|Back their own judgement on the prognosis - Demigod complex etc.


Some Doctors who sugarcoat patients’ prognosis may do so to soften the blow of bad news and help them remain hopeful about their potential recovery.
So how can doctors learn to be more honest with their patients?
Simply Communicate the HONESTY— especially when it comes to delivering news.