How
to Spot a Fake Doctor
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| Fake or Real? How to tell? |
Last
Sunday on a sudden whim I went to the gym - well maybe not that sudden a whim-
for on Saturday my favorite pair of pants had failed to button itself onto me
and so to assuage my guilty conscience about my expanding waistline and also
due to the multiple phone calls from the gym trainers threatening to close down
my membership if I did not put in an appearance at least occasionally. Once
there I got down to it with gusto and at the end of a ten minute walkathon on
the treadmill was totally exhausted and decided to take a water break.
As
I stood there by the water fountain waiting my turn for the drink that revives,
an old acquaintance, one of those regular iron pumpers who live for the gym,
wandered over to say "hi" to
me. After making the usual jokes on my nonexistent washboard abs and irregular
gym visits he introduced to me someone standing beside him as "this guy is
a doctor too". I turned and said a polite "hi" to the stranger
and that would have been an end to that if only the water fountain had been
free but unfortunately the crowd around the water hadn't diminished yet and I
found myself in the awkward position of having to make small talk with the new
acquaintance.
So
perfunctorily I asked the other doctor where he had studied. He hesitated a bit
and dropping his voice in a shifty way said something like "in shankhurrah
naturally". I thought I had misheard and asked him to repeat again and he
murmured the same in an even quieter voice than before. I was genuinely puzzled
for the name he gave me was the name of an eye hospital and not of any medical
college. As far as I know, and I do know a few
things, a medical college is where you study and a hospital is where you
work, you cannot study at an hospital anymore than you can work at a college
(or maybe you can- if you already have a degree from somewhere else).
Something
was definitely not right here or maybe it was my just my nasty suspicious
nature, so I decided to go for broke and asked him right out "So, are you
an ophthalmic surgeon?” He took his time weighing his answer and so to help him
along with the process I volunteered with a "I probably know a couple of
doctors there- colleagues of yours I presume?" that made it clear to him
he had had it and could no longer dissemble and it was better to tell me the
truth, so he mumbled "I am an optometrist". Ha-ha, I thought that
explains it, so why couldn't he have come straight out and confessed this in
the beginning and saved himself all the trouble. Anyway, not being an
insensitive type who humiliates others, I decided to go along with his story
and so said a loud "thank you, nice meeting you doctor" in front of
the others and then I moved away from there to go and lift my burdens (for my
sins) from the weight rack.
And
now for those wondering what was it all
about -an optometrist is a technician who examines the eye for defects in eye
power- just like a lab technician or a x-ray technician or an ecg technician -
what we call a para-medical staff and
definitely not a real doctor qualified to do eye surgeries. But in a worrisome
new trend a few greedy corporate hospitals have started short term Para Medical
courses where they train people to assist doctors and to make more money by
cheating the poor trainees they inform them that at the end of the course they
may call themselves as doctors, which is strictly not true.
But
in our country where anything goes we have quacks everywhere and anyone who has
assisted a doctor for a couple of years or for that matter anyone who has read
half a dozen health related articles on google- considers themselves a medical
expert. So doctors are dime a dozen and it is up to each patient to identify if
the person they are seeing is a real doctor or not. The best way to make sure-
is to ask to see their original degree certificates but as most doctors
mortgage this certificates with their banks to get loans for establishing their
clinics we need a better way to judge if its a real doctor or just a pretend
doctor, so i have taken the trouble to offer you a few hints on how to identify
fakes
Hints
to spot a fake doctor
1)
I know OT but OR?
If he/she says OR instead of OT - he/she is
a fake. In India or for that matter anywhere else in the world except in the US
of A where they do things perversely just to be different (don’t they even
drive on the other side of the road?) - Any surgical operation is conducted
inside an Operation theatre and not in an Operation room. We have places called
M.OT- minor Operation Theater, G.OT - general operations theater or S.OT-
specialty Operations Theater or doctors just generally refer to it as "the
theatre". So if your doctor says "take the patient to the OR"
run from there without looking back for he has seen too many episodes of the
American Medical Sitcoms like Scrubs or House MD- where they use the fictional term
"OR" when they meant to say
"OT". So anyone who says OR and not OT is a TV doctor who got his
degree watching the TV serial Grey's Anatomy which brings me immediately to my
next red-flag.
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| We call it a Theater |
2)
Is it Gray or just Grey?
If ask your doctor to spell the word gray’s
anatomy and he uses the "E" instead of the syllable "A" for
Gray then again run from him for he is just a TV doctor. The name in question
"gray" originally refers to a very famous (and very dead) anatomist
called Dr.Gray who wrote a big fat book of anatomy called Grays Anatomy- a book
which will always stay on the library's dust laden shelf- for who (except body
builders) will have the strength to lug around a 5000 page giant sized book
when slimmer versions of recent authors are available. They call gray’s anatomy
the bible of anatomy for a reason- like the bible it is only read by preachers
or pastors- and never by the laity. So that’s about Gray with an
"A's" anatomy. If your doctor refers to the other Grey's anatomy with
an "e" rest assured the only anatomy he studied is the body of a
female sitcom actresses called grey from the TV serial.
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| The Original Gray with "A" |
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| The TV series with "E" |
3)
The Wiki-warrior aka the Google-worshipper
This is someone who thinks that he knows
medicine better than doctors because he owns a desktop, a laptop, a tablet and
a phone with Internet connection. These people will astound you with facts and
figures pulled straight out of recent research papers and offer gratuitous advice
to all ailments, even unasked and they won’t stop dosing others with their
medical opinions until they finally kill someone with their advice. Be aware
that they are just well intentioned idiots who don’t set out to deliberately
cheat you but do it only out of ignorance trusting to their half-baked
understanding of medicine gained from reading questionable online medical
websites.
Remember
there is a reason that a medical education takes so many years to complete-
doctors literally can kill you with their wrong (or even well intentioned)
advice- so are you going to trust someone who read a few medical articles on Wikipedia
yesterday and offers free advice on social media today? Real doctors rarely
speak about such hot medical news because they don’t go by the most recent
internet reports - they wait for the treatment or medicine to become
standardized and widely accepted (however long it takes) and then only will
they recommend it - making sure that even if the treatment doesn’t work as
hyped at least their patients don’t get to die. So if someone starts with a
"you know what, i read just yesterday in google/pubmed ...." just
close your eyes and delete that chat thread.
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| Is this your Doctor ? |
4)
The white coat carriers -
Doctors wear a variety of dresses but
one thing that typifies them is the ubiquitous white coat. But not every doctor
wears one all the time. In fact, doctors try not to wear these when not seeing
patients. For one thing, wearing white coats in our hot Indian climate,
especially over your everyday regular wear, is hot work and you are bathed in
sweat all the time. For another the white coat is a dust and dirt magnet and it
is so difficult to keep it spotless white all the time- as expected of a
dutiful doctor. So when the doctor is not actually seeing a patient the coat is
draped over the back of his chair or safely folded inside his locker - to keep
it dust free. No doctor or at least no real doctor ever carries the white coat
on his shoulders everywhere he goes to show that he is a doctor- only fakes do
that even at bus stops and roadsides. Real doctors, by the time they graduate
hate wearing those coats so much that only the threat of the chief doctors
rounds makes them hurriedly don that coat. So if you see someone walking and
showing off a white coat all the time- he is a fake.
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| Wear it or Fold it....NEVER carry around |
5)
Scrubs Vs Dress.
American medical sitcoms often show
doctors, all doctors, walking around in what they call scrubs. In India we call
it theatre dress, never ever scrubs. And only surgeons get to wear it- not
regular doctors who just wear their white coats when seeing patients. And even
surgeons never walk around in it all day- for it is supposed to be worn only
inside a sterile environment- an operation theatre and not where dust and germs
can collect on it. Even the busiest of surgeons don’t actually live in that
dress like they show on TV serials- we wear it only on entering the theatre and
change out of it when leaving the theatre at the end of the surgery. And male
and female doctors (in India) change in separate rooms unlike what they show on
TV, which is a pity because the surest way to kill any in-house romance is to
see a colleague in their (often weird) undies. So watch out for people who say
"Scrubs".
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| Who wears this ALL DAY? |
So
these are just a few of my ideas on how to identify a fake doctor who got his
degree from watching TV serials. Please feel free to add your own methods of
identification in the comments section below.
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