medical fiefdoms

Medical specialists have taken over our bodies to carve out their personal fiefdoms: the gastroentrologists who know about nothing but the stomach, not even the spleen next door, the nephrologists, urologists, diabetic specialists, ophtalmologists, orthopaedics, the cardiac guys who know of nothing else but the heart etc etc. in days to come, we can anticipate a doctor who only knows about the mitral valve of the heart, or only the left nostril or the right thumb or only the medula oblangata and nothing else.
No one knows of anything but their specialities but all of them to a man are totally dependent on the radiologists and the pathologists to make their diagnosis...otherwise it is no go.
And woe betide the person who has a pain in a region of the body where is no bone or special organ for some medico to specialise in. May be, the patient may just find himself being packed off to a psychiatrist to examine his head for daring to experieince such an unspecialisable pain!!

Comments

Haddock said…
I know of an excellent Dr who is now practicing in Botswana, because he was fed up of the "cut" system that was being practiced here in India. (you send the patient to me for reference and I will give you a cut on my earnings)
6:29 am
Kusum Choppra said…
when were you in Pune? I studied in Hutchings till 1966 and college therafter before shifting out after marriage.
4:40 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deepika Vs Madhuri

The music channels are full of the  “Deewani Mastani” song. It takes one back Madhuri Dixit’s so many kg ghagra kothawali dance in Devdas.  Pet obsession? Chitpavan women would never be caught in public watching such a performance, as Priyanka Chopra is seen, with perhaps the most authentic expressions crossing her face as she looks on at the interplay between Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. Deepika, in   her pale gold avatar in a net outfit reminiscent of flamenco dancers, with many   co-dancers, seems to inhabit the same Madhuri  space.   She dances in a huge ornate space, more European than Peshwai in design.    Peshwai architecture was noted for its long, perhaps narrow halls and tall distinctively fluted and carved wooden columns based on stone to prevent damp and   insect damage --- all topped with intricately carved wood ceilings and all polished black in color.   Noted examples are the Mastani resurrected palace at ...
Read more

A New Mastani

MASTANI is  unique book in that it is India’s first historical novel that offers its readers two endings, diagrammatically opposed to each other;  the second one  plugs all the holes left in the story of Mastani left by traditional renderings of the myths and legends that surround the second wife of Peshwa Baji Rao I, widely accepted as India’s answer to Napoleon Bonaparte as a unbeaten general.  Congratulations are due to Mr. Kapish Mehra of Rupa Publications for allowing this to happen. As a history buff, every reading of Maratha history left me bewildered at the steadfastness of historians in never failing to mention Mastani as leading influence in Baji Rao’s life; and then leaving that mention as a single sentence or paragraph without any elaboration of such a ‘towering’ personality, so to speak. Hence the research that went on and on and on to explode all the myths and legends that surround Mastani, to expose her tragedy, her true character and her royal...
Read more

A UNIFORM CIVIL CODE?

This was first published on Jan-2007.   How much has the situation changed? What is this Uniform civil Code? Is it possible? Reasonable? Soon after Independence, Hindu inheritance laws were codified to give weightage to the females of the family. Later others ‘favoring’ women have been added. Despite this codification, dowry continues. Daughters’ inheritance remains as dicey as when the Christian community battled for those rights in the Courts.
 Meanwhile daughters have already been made as responsible for upkeep of aged parents as their brothers. Would the promulgation of a Uniform civil Code push the conservative elements off center stage and allow women their rights? Much of the focus has been on the "plight" of Muslim divorcees, especially victims of talaq, talaq, talaq. In that community, the order of male relatives who must support the woman has been laid down. Whether they do so or not, is another matter altogether. 
But what of our Hindu women, rejected by ...
Read more