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It takes a lot of courage to place your life in a doctor's hands ! How can you be sure your doctor is any good ? Or that he will take good care of you when you have a problem ? It's hard to judge a doctor's competence and doctor shopping takes a lot of time and energy. It's also not very smart to go purely by a friend's recommendation !

Here's an easy test. Ask the doctor a question about your problem ( preferably an easy question which you already know the answer to !) and see how he responds.

Does he get irritated ? Does he brush off your query ? Does he answer brusquely ? Does he use medical jargon ? Does he send you to his assistant for answers ?

Does he take the time to explain in simple terms ? Does he bother to check that you have understood his answer ? Does he offer to give you educational materials to clarify your doubts ?

As a patient, you are likely to have lots of questions and how your doctor handles your questions is an excellent way of judging how good your doctor is ! The best time to find out is as the first consultation, rather than regret your choice at leisure later !

This is one of the commonest complaints patients have about their doctor. It's true that doctors are very busy and have lots of patients to see. While it would be great if your doctor had all the time and patience and energy in the world to answer your questions, the truth is that the amount of time you have with your doctor is going to be limited.

It's part of a doctor's job to educate his patients. A doctor who does not do this is not a good doctor, simple. However, it can be very boring for a doctor to answer the same questions again and again - and doctors are human too - they get fed up and bored as well !

How can you help your doctor to make the most of the limited time you have with him, so he can clear your doubts and answer your queries ?

The best way to to do this is to get your doctor to respect you, so that he treats your concerns and doubts with courtesy . However, you need to earn this respect. The best way of doing so is by being well-informed; and you can do this by educating yourself as much as possible about your problem, both before you visit your doctor , and afterwards. This will allow you to be
considerate with the doctor's time, so that you can ask him specific, pointed queries . ( Doctors are smart and most like answering clever questions - it's the ones they are asked all the time which they find boring !)

Some patients just ask questions for the sake of asking these. These just waste the doctor's time and irritate him - causing you to lose his goodwill and respect. Thus, many question are best answered by the support staff , rather than the doctor. ( If you need to know what the clinic timings are, please ask the receptionist, not the doctor !)

Other patients have a long laundry list of questions. While I approve of the fact that patients have taken the time and trouble to write their questions down, it also bothers me that they have not bothered to find out the answers to these questions by just taking the time to visit our website at www.drmalpani.com ! I do get upset by intelligent patients who do not take the effort to go online and educate themselves about their problem. If they will not take the trouble to help themselves, why should they expect their doctor to go out of his way to help them ?

If a doctor gets irritated with your questions, this means he does not respect you. This is not acceptable behaviour. If he is very busy , he does not need to do the basic education himself - he can do it through his website; with DVDs; or with the help the help of a nurse. Clever doctors will get an assistant to explain the basics, so they only have to explain advanced concepts ( as to how the treatment will be tailored for the individual patient) .

I prefer answering my patient's questions by email . Most questions are ones other patients have asked me in the past, so it's quite easy for me to answer these quickly and efficiently. Because the answer is documented , there is less confusion and this saves the patient time and anxiety ! This is far more efficient than asking questions face to face, or with a phone call !

Taking time to educate yourself has lots of advantages. The doctor does not need to waste time going over the basics ; and because he knows you've done your homework, it helps him to have a more high level discussion with you . Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease !

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Many doctors underestimate their patient's intelligence. The truth is that most patients ( most of the time):
1. want to know as much as possible about their illness and their treatment options
and
2. are smart enough to understand their options

Patients want to be treated with respect. They look up to their doctor - and trust he will do a good job treating them. So why don't all doctors treat their patients as intelligent adults - someone who is capable of understanding what has gone wrong and what the doctor needs to do to fix the problem ?

Do doctors feel threatened by patients who ask questions ? Or is it that they do not have the time or energy to answer these questions ?

Some well-meaning doctors are worried that patients will not be able to understand the niceties of their medical problems. The nuances of medicine can be subtle, and few answers are black or white. Most are shades of gray, and these doctors are worried that providing additional information will just end up confusing the patient.

Others are not happy about sharing the uncertainty which is inherent in medicine with their patients. They want to be perceived by their patients as being the expert, and this is why they need to provide unequivocal answers. Others are concerned that discussing unclear issues with patients may cause them to lose confidence in the doctor. They believe that patients expect clear-cut answers - and that it's the doctor's job to provide these. Why add to the patient's confusion by talking about ifs and buts and maybes ? Doing so also runs the risk that the patient may end up selecting an option the doctor does not personally like - and this will just add to the tension.

I believe that if the patient cannot understand what the doctor is saying, the fault is the doctor's - he is not doing a good job explaining ! Most patients are quite sophisticated, and are used to handling uncertainty in their daily life. They want a doctor who will discuss their options with them, and provide guidance when asked for, rather than tell them what to do and expect them to blindly follow instructions.

I have found that sharing medical journal articles with patients will often them to come to terms with their disease, and help them to make the right decision for themselves.

Good doctors have a deep understanding of the technical minutiae of their specialty - and while they are capable of doing advanced research and publishing in medical journals, they are also capable of simplifying and explaining all the nitty gritty of their specialty to their patients !

Patients who are treated as idiots tend to behave like idiots !( Of course, sometimes patients do behave like idiots on their own as well , but thankfully this is a small minority !) Patients who are treated with respect will , in turn, respect the doctor and look upto him as a trusted professional , for guidance and wise counsel.

I treat many patients who are CEOs . They are very smart and teach me all the time ( if not about medicine , then about how to run my practise, for example !) If they are bright to run a company, I am sure they are smart enough to understand everything about IVF. Clever doctors will acknowledge the patient's expertise and make use of this !

Doctors need to take a proactive approach and understand that teaching their patients and treating them with respect is a great way of differentiating themselves from the competition.
The web is a great tool for patient education - and the nice thing about developing patient educational modules on the web is that once they have been developed, they can be used many times !

I have found this very rewarding, and you can see some of the patient educational modules we have developed at www.ivfindia.com. This is a "proof of concept" - and we hope that other doctors will use this as a model they can emulate !