Building relations

This idea struck my mind because I have rarely seen doctors making friends with their patients. Patients may make friends with their doctors because good or not so good, doctors are needed by the patients to get rid of their illnesses.

I have met doctors who have treated me for this or the other problem but on such meetings they never made enquiries as to how I was getting along after the treatment. In fact on one or two occasions when I had failed to observe the strict instructions I felt shy of facing the doctor when I came face to face with him later.

Of course just to prove that what we think need not be always true in all cases I remember the story of one Mr Manuel who used to go to his doctor and the doctor used to always say, ‘Mr Manuel, there is nothing wrong with you. You are merely imagining things.’ One day the doctor met Simon the son of Manuel at the Mall. ‘How is your father, Simon?’ he asked. Simon said, ‘Oh he is quite ok doctor. The only thing is he is imagining that he is dead.’

It seems a patient went to a dentist and said, ‘Doctor, do you remember me?’  ‘No’ said the doctor but once the patient was seated on the costly dental chair and made to open his mouth wide the dentist said, ‘Ah, yes I remember you. Lower fourth grinder fully ground down!’

When we are introduced to a doctor at a party we make it a point to remember the medico hoping that he may be of help to us sometime. But the doctors rarely remember prospective patients. So when we next spot the doctor at the city hospital we eagerly approach him hoping that he will help us. But often we learn some hard facts like this doctor is a physician and not a surgeon (thank god, he is not a vet), or that it is not his OPD day or that he his going abroad very soon  and hence can’t see patients.

In all branches of sales and service sellers are advised to build relationship with customers. They have all sorts of gimmicks to help train the salespeople in developing friendly  relationship with customers. Can’t the doctors ask their secretaries to note the dates of birth and such other dates and call the patients and greet them on such occasions?

I was a member of a group known as ‘Helping Hand’ rendering help to poor patients in government hospitals. I did this work with much devotion for 12 years but after that I fell ill and was out of circulation for two years.

Not one doctor or nurse or ayah called on me or called on phone and spoke to me. When I resumed my service after the period of two years a number of doctors and nurses said they wondered what had happened to me.

But as a saving grace one particular doctor did make phone calls on a few occasions and asked me to go to the hospital and assured me of his help. The world goes round its axis only because of such rare men.