Hyderabad: Reading up from medical websites, studying from medical journals and asking doctors questions are “liable to attract fees” of Rs 500 for every extra question.
Doctors are fed up with Internet-based self-diagnosis and questions by patient or their relatives as they are spending too much time explaining. At the same time, a few patients have forced some of the doctors to go back and “refer to their medical text books” to assure themselves that they have not gone wrong in their diagnosis.
In the Indian set-up, “cyberchonidriacs” are eating away at the “precious time” of the doctors. For this reason, junior doctors and also secretaries of doctors have been trained to check for the following: “Is a patient coming for consultation, second opinion or treatment?”
Once this fact is established, the patients and their relatives are warned that answers to “questions based on Internet knowledge and self-diagnosis are liable for extra fees”.
A senior oncologist in the city who had a two and a half hour session with the relative of a patient for oral cancer said, “The Q&A with the relative was like answering a viva after 20 years of practice. So convincing was his argument that I had to refer to the medical journal and textbook to assure myself that I had not forgotten what I had learnt. This kind of knowledge can put young practising doctors in a dilemma.”
Dr S. Chandrika, a gastroenterologist explained, “The present practice systems entail that once a diagnosis is done, patients’ relatives have to be explained the surgical part as their consent is required due to legal formalities. But if the patient or their relative turns around and asks: ‘Why open surgery and why not laparoscopic’, then it is a matter of debate and also doubting the surgeon.”
Many doctors are peeved with these “cyberchonidriacs” and prefer to “not be questioned about their diagnosis”. Dr Mohammed Ali, an ophthalmologist said, “A single symptom has a huge list of diagnosis on the Internet which may not even be applicable to the patient. But many of them readily believe in the information without realising that it does not match their body type, age, symptoms of the disease and also their medical history.”
But aren’t the umpteen medical websites and also telemedicine to be blamed for this vast information?
Dr G. Kishan Reddy, general physician said, “It has become a double-edged sword where one set of people read or listen but do not debate or doubt the doctor’s diagnosis. Another set of people doubt, self-diagnose and want the doctor’s evaluation to be the same as their own, which is ridiculous. What they fail to understand is that medical websites are general in nature and doctor’s carry out specific diagnosis."
