JOIN USOne of our neighbours had a cardiac arrest recently. Since none of us (his family and neighbours) wanted any chance of his revival left unplumbed, we took him to a multispecialty hospital closeby. The doctors at the hospital couldn’t revive him as, according to them, he’d been dead for more than an hour. The need for his death certificate arose for, without it, the deceased couldn’t be cremated.
The doctors, like everybody these days, played it safe. One of them reasoned that if he had died in the hospital, they would have issued the certificate! Though it was a mournful moment, one of us, out of indignation, told the doctor, “Sorry, his family was unaware of the hospital policy. Else they would have asked the deceased to delay his death until he arrived here.”
Another doctor, who had never seen the deceased alive or dead, when approached through a contact, issued the certificate. A substantial amount changed hands.
Often, the interaction between doctors and patients gives rise to funny anecdotes. There was a city-dweller who, when asked by a doctor about his ailment, said rather haughtily, “Doctor, isn’t it your job to find that out?” This naturally annoyed the doctor, but without any signs of annoyance on his face, he led the man out of his consulting room and asked him to read the board dangling outside a clinic across the road. It read: Veterinary Surgeon. “That’s the place you ought to have gone. The patients there are not asked any questions,” quipped the doctor.
The very thought of going to a dentist makes one jumpy. I once was putting off a dental procedure out of scare but finally ended up with an altogether different experience.
One of the molars had been troubling me for sometime. One day, while I was at work, it started aching. A colleague suggested I go to a dental surgeon, his neighbour, whom he knew was practising not far from our office. I rushed to the doctor. Although I said nothing, he gauged my problem from my grimacing face. The doctor appeared, as my colleague said, very bonhomous, and was humming a tune. Feeling my tooth, he said, “It has suffered too much damage from decay to be repaired. It’s shaky, and the cavity is so deep that it should be extracted.” And extract he did in a jiffy, with bare fingers and without my realising it.
And I continued, “Please give me anesthetics before you extract it, doctor.” “ For what? I have already taken it out,” he said and added, “It won’t bleed, it won’t pain. If at all it does, take a Crocin.”
“How much, doctor?” I asked. “Don’t worry about the fee. Go, go home now,” came the reply. The jovial doctor made me recall Voltaire’s words: The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.