The Inexpert Senior Surgeon

 

Dr. Dev (Fictional Name) was sitting in the Surgical Outpatient Department (OPD) of the hospital. He saw a patient with a sebaceous cyst (a small skin swelling) and sent the patient to the adjoining minor operation theatre (OT) for operation (excision biopsy) under local anesthesia. Such minor operations were done almost exclusively by the interns and junior residents of the surgery department and were an integral part of their training to get the hands-on experience that was the foundation for their doing major operations in the later period.

When the patient reached the minor OT, he found that Dr. Sam (Fictional Name), the junior resident posted in the minor OT had to suddenly go to the indoor patient ward to attend to some emergency. The patient became angry and came back to Dr. Dev in OPD.

‘There is no doctor in the minor operation theatre where you had sent me,’ the patient complained. Dr. Dev replied, ‘The doctor had to go for an emergency in the ward to save the patient’s life. He will come back shortly and do the operation.’

The patient pondered Dr. Dev’s word for a few seconds and then countered, ‘If that doctor is busy in an emergency then why don’t you come and do the operation instead of sitting here?’

Dr. Dev carefully considered the patient’s words. As the senior-most doctor, he was needed in the OPD to discuss and guide the junior doctors. The training of the junior residents will also suffer if senior doctors start doing such minor operations. And it was only actually a few minutes since the patient had come to OPD and the junior resident will anyway come shortly and do the operation.

Dr. Dev replied, ‘Among us, Dr. Sam does the maximum number of this type of operation. I have not done even a single such operation in the last three months. You can confirm with the minor operation theatre staff. Even then if you want I can come and do the operation. Or if want you can wait for Dr. Sam who is the expert in this type of operation.’

The patient ruminated on  Dr. Dev’s explanation and then said, ‘Okay I will wait for Dr. Sam and get the operation done by him only’ and left peacefully to wait outside the minor OT.

When confronted by an angry patient/client/customer using logic to justify yourself is usually useless. Dr. Dev could have shown the patient the OPD slip with the timestamp on it to show that it was only a few minutes since he had made the OPD slip and therefore he can wait for some time, but he knew from experience this will not be accepted by an angry patient. Instead, he gave a justifiable reason for the junior doctor’s going to the ward, explicitly adding that it was necessary to save a patient’s life. For the matter, we don’t know if it was entirely true or just a fiction created to placate the patient.

Even if you are a senior person/head/supervisor/boss you can be asked by your patient/client/customer to do a task which is usually done by your juniors. If it is a true emergency then you should do the task without further thought. If it is not an emergency then things become tricky. If you refuse directly then you risk making your patients or customers angrier and face retaliation by them. In such a situation it is far better to use creativity like Dr. Dev to explain why it is in the patient/client/customer’s interest to wait for the designated person.

— ND

(Based on an allegedly true incident.)

© Author. All rights reserved. 

Please share this post on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

If viewing from Mobile, switch to Webpage view to see a list of popular posts and index of topics of previous posts.

Please give your valuable feedback via the comments below. Please note that comments will appear later only after moderation. Please Log in with Google Id before writing comments.

You can receive a notification on the latest post by subscribing via clicking on the bottom of the page on the Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purposes. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use the information herein is at your one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal, and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to MCI and other Board norms.