Apollo Hospitals hosted a one of its kind conference, “Not Just Meds” to address issues confronted by Doctors on a daily basis
Ms Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals & President, CII inaugurated and delivered the keynote address. Also present on the occasion were Dr Somaraju B, Chairman, CARE Hospitals; Dr Guruva Reddy, Chairman, Sunshine Hospital; Dr Gopichand M, Chairman, Star Hospitals; Dr K Hari Prasad, President, Apollo Hospital; Organising Committee members Dr Amitava Ray, Organising Secretary; Ms Ishita Shively, Treasurer and over 300 participant Doctors from 23 hospitals.
Medical profession is today at cross roads. Besides addressing the public health needs, doctors also urgently need to address professional and personal issues they face on a daily basis. In fact, often these aspects are ignored, the consequences impact the doctor and his family. This conference is making a beginning to address such issues and ensure an all-round growth of those in the profession.
Speaking on the occasion Ms Shobana Kamineni said “Medical professionals need to constantly upgrade their skills and leverage technology. We need to allow more and more technology to come. If there are any who think that technology may make them redundant or replace people, they should realise that technology in fact creates more jobs, it makes their job more easy and efficient. Convergence of technology will make the journey little bit easier. The recently introduced Ayushman Bharat will be biggest job creator for India. While it opens access to better healthcare for 500 mn Indians, it is also a huge opportunity, it creates 50 mn jobs. India can become more vibrant. She said the top risks seen to mankind by analysts are climate change and worldwide pandemic, which is expected to emanate from the East. Also, the profession needs to build trust and that brings the best results. Today’s patient is little more educated and tends to question. Doctors should try and patiently respond to the questioning attitude of patients, which only makes the society richer and knowledgeable. It is for the profession to think out of the box, find solutions and deliver.”
Dr Hari Prasad said “Trust between patient and Doctor is the most important factor. It is this trust which keeps the bond between patient and doctor strong. If there is a trust deficiency, it is due to multiple factors and leads to mis-communication between the two resulting in defensive medicine. To bridge this deficit, we all need to work towards making the bond robust. Healthcare itself is seeing lot of changes in practice, technology, access to healthcare is rising, public activism has gone up. In such a scenario, many doctors lack confidence to provide efficient care and this conference will build and instil the confidence among Doctors to provide the right care.”
Dr Gopichand said “As medical care is becoming expensive and the patient has to meet these expenses from his pocket, he is not willing to trust every test the doctor prescribes. Once more and more people get medical insurance and cost of healthcare is not a burden on their pockets, the trust between patient and doctor will be restored.”
Dr Somaraju said “The patient and doctor are not opposite parties. Their objective is the recovery of the patient and therefore we need to work towards restoring the trust before it erodes further. Ultimately loss of trust impacts everyone, the doctor, the patient and the system, but it hurts the patient most. There are issues with the doctors, hospitals, public, mediators especially politicians, media, unless we all discuss, the issue can’t be sorted.”
Dr Guruva Reddy said “In a situation of distrust, what is right is more important than who is right. As diseases have also become hi-tech, which was not the case earlier, majority of the tests have become mandatory for the benefit of the patient. Doctors only wants to provide the best care to his patient.”
Dr Alok Ranjan, Sr Neurosurgeon, Apollo Hospitals said “Every treatment has a gold standard, which is of course dynamic and as long as we are true and honest in dealing with every patient and are transparent in what we are doing and show empathy, there should not be a disagreement between Doctor and patient.”
Dr Amitava Ray said “Some statistics reveal an alarming picture and abject ignorance on these vital aspects in the profession. The life span of Indian Doctors may be 10 years less than the mean life expectancy of our matched populace and around 2500 Doctors commit suicide every year and 90% of these Doctors are in the 24 to 38 age brackets. They face many challenges within the profession and outside, stress and poor lifestyle only hamper their progress. This conference is to sensitise the doctors to combat such challenges.”
This Conference cutting across hospital and specialty boundaries, had mentors from 5 major hospitals, eminent speakers addressing the participants on issues those in the Doctor profession confront on a day to day basis like Building Careers, Law & Ethics, Financial Wellness & Personal Wellness and will delve into aspects like how to enhance their careers, manage finances, be on the right side of the law, keep fit, cope with stress etc. The Conference had 4 sessions addressing key areas that are not covered in any Medical School curriculum.
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