DOCTORS FAIL TO KEEP ABREAST

It will be worthwhile for the medical professional to develop strategies to keep itself up-to-date with the latest developments in the field of medicine. By Dr. V.N. Jindal.

Do not believe in anything just because it is handed down from antiquity or because you heard sages wrote them or that it was inspired by devas. Believe not in the mere authority of teachers and masters. Believe when the writing or doctrine is corroborated by reason and consciousness.
-Gautama Buddha

IN OUR COUNTRY, once a medical professional has passed his qualifying examinations and then started practicing his specialty, he does not feel a need to keep himself updated with the new developments in the field of specialization. Most doctors have outdated ideas, which are as old as their medical school days. They very rarely attend any medical education seminars, symposia or workshops. This is because there is no concept of peer review in our country. Even knowledge about newly released drugs is imparted to the doctors through medical representatives of various pharmaceutical companies, who for obvious reasons will highlight only the good aspects of their products and not reveal the side effects or adverse reactions. The product literature distributed by them is also biased. This is a dangerous situation. In our set-up, once a doctor has been registered with a medical council he does not have to review the registration at a later stage in his life. The situation is slightly better in teaching institutions, where the doctors are forced to keep in touch with the latest developments because they have to teach the students. However here also, the updating of knowledge is far below the desirable level.

In developed countries, on the other hand, every medical practitioner has to compulsorily attend a certain number of seminars, symposia or CME lectures to collect a specified number of credit hours. Without this, his or her license to practice medicine is not renewed. This ensures that the medical professionals in these countries are updated with the latest developments in their field of specialization. Mostly this is regulated by the specialty board, to which they belong.

Why don’t doctors in our country do the same? One of the reasons, as already mentioned, is that there is no regulatory authority to enforce. Secondly, the doctors in private practice feel that attending such seminars and symposia will be at the cost of their practice. Many government doctors do not attend these seminars because of financial constraints. The registration fees and the traveling and hotel expenses to attend these seminars are quite high and a government doctor finds it difficult to spend for these from his paltry salary. Unfortunately, in most of the cases, the government does not depute doctors because of the austerity measures to cut down the expenditure. Also the quality of such seminars and symposia in our country is not very high. Most of the medical professionals who attend these seminars do so to meet their old friends and have some leisure time rather than learn new things. Recently, the Medical Council of India has proposed the credit hour system in our country , wherein it will be mandatory for every medical professional to attend certain number of seminars or conferences to renew their license to practice. This is a welcome sign. How soon this will be implemented remains to be seen.

Furthermore, knowledge is updated not only by attending conferences, but also through medical journals. But very few medical professionals subscribe to these journals. This is partly due to the prohibitive cost of these journals in our country. Hopefully the internet will partially solve this problem as most of the reputed journals are now available on internet at least in abstract form.

Medical professionals must realize that keeping abreast with the latest developments in their field of specialization is important not only for good clinical practice, but also to safeguard themselves (from the legal point of view). Quite a few cases against doctors have been decided in the court of law because of their ignorance of the latest developments in their field of specialization. Another important reason for keeping in touch with the latest developments is the patient’s curiosity. Nowadays the patients come to doctors with a lot of information, thanks to the internet and in case the doctor cannot answer the patient’s questions, it may be embarrassing. After all in today’s electronic world, knowledge is power.

It will be worthwhile for the medical professional to develop strategies to keep himself up-to-date with the latest developments in the field of medicine. Using the internet to download the latest medical journals and arranging medical meetings by inviting reputed medical personnel can cut down the cost of acquisition of this knowledge. The government should also encourage participation by doctors in such conferences. This is a worthwhile investment.

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