People in India lament about the difficulty of finding good doctors there. The usual assumption made is that all the good medical students emigrate to the US, resulting in only the not so good ones being left behind there. Having lived there for 25 years, I have been to at least a dozen doctors. Barring a few trusted ones that we know are good, almost every new trial was a disaster.
The one that is clearly at the top of my memory was when my brother fainted after eating something extremely hot. We were worried that he might have had head injury during the fall, so our family doctor asked us to visit another physician - this guy was supposedly a specialist. This specialist made my brother take an EEG, took one look at it, and asked me and my mother to come to another room, for a "confidential" talk. He then proceeded to tell us that my brother had epilepsy, that he should be put under strong medication for two and a half years, that it would affect his studies, and perhaps the rest of his life. We were both shocked, because there had been no signs of anything like epilepsy before that. The doctor was ready to prescribe the medicines and start off with the treatment, and we took the prescription and went back home, sullen.. My brother at that point was a really good student, and it was heartbreaking to think he wouldnt be what he was anymore because of these medications.
After getting back home, we had a discussion with my father, who was thankfully less emotionally disturbed. He calmly suggested that we meet another specialist. This time around, we decided it had to be someone who was recommended by people. We went to the new doctor, he examined my brother, and said everything was completely normal. We were confused, and on giving a print out of the older eeg which contained the "abnormality" he immediately laughed and said, oh, the boy must have gone to sleep while the eeg was taken!
To think that this doctor from a fairly reputed hospital suggested we put my brother on chemicals that cause changes to the brain outrages me even now. I wonder how they can care so little about making such a diagnosis. Did this doctor consider the possibility that it might be wrong at least once? Why didnt he wait for another such occurrence? Why didnt he ask about past history? Why didnt he try to take the eeg once more? Any one of these questions might have pointed the doc in the right direction.... Worst of all, why had he never observed the eeg of another patient who went to sleep during the process when0?
My brother has had no other fainting episodes. And yes, he was school topper in 10th cbse exams, in a fiercely competitive school.
This is not the only bad doctor I have been to. There have been many... so I believed the assumption that all good doctors were here... until I actually went to some doctors here.
Last week I noticed that I was hearing considerably lesser from my left ear. There was also some pain when I burped. I first tried to get ear wax out with a q-tip, then tried pouring some ear-ache drops inside and so on. Nothing helped. Finally, after three days of trying to wish this thing away, I went to a doctor. He looked and immediately said, oh, you just have ear wax, we shall clean that out right now...
He first tried pouring hydrogen peroxide solution into my ear. This is H2O2, so it dissociates into water and O2 and produces this fizzing sound in your ear, pretty much like cola. I didnt mind, so I lied down and waited for it to do its thing. The only thing that confused me was that I had seen paraffin used to do this, instead of H2O2. After giving the H2O2 about 20 minutes to work, the doc came back and said he would rinse my ear. The rinsing was done with a syringe, and wasnt at all comfortable. He then asked if I felt like everything was gone. Nothing had cleared, and I said so. He looked in my ear again, said, oh, theres more. And again poured H2O2 and left for another 20 minutes. And again tried rinsing the ear with water. This time, he also tried to use a qtip to fish the wax out. He apparently tried too hard, because it hurt me quite a bit and I cried out in pain. He told me there was more of the stuff left inside. (In fact, almost nothing had come out). He then gave me the H2O2 solution, and asked me to go and try it myself, at home. He also told me that I could try to fill my ears with water while taking a shower.
I went home and dutifully tried it, with no results. Finally, after about 2-3 days of trying this, I called my father. He told me that H2O2 will dissociate into plain water, and that it will likely not dissolve ear wax, and that he didnt understand why it was poured into my ear to clear out wax. He suggested that I use paraffin.
All this while, I continued to be unable to hear out of my left ear... I next searched on the internet and found that H2O2 was used for cleaning out ear wax. I even performed an experiment to ensure that it dissolved wax - I fished some wax out of the ear with a Qtip and put it in H2O2 and watched the wax disappear. So I decided that pouring the H2O2 should remedy my problem, and continued to pour more and more of it in the ear - with no results.
Finally, about a week after I had lost hearing, I went to another doctor. This time, it was a specialist, and looking at his office, I was sure I would get treated with one of those fancy looking equipments. Thats exactly what happened - but it solved my problem, and it took under 5 minutes to finish the whole thing and walk out. What he had was a vaccum pump. He put the thing in my outer ear and used suction, and all the wax came out, with minimal discomfort for me. And later, because I was a little uncomfortable with this vaccum cleaning thing, he cleared out the ear with some water - this time it really did bring wax out - and that was it! All the wax was gone, I could hear clearly, and the pain was gone too!
Good docs are hard to find. Here as well as at home.
