Us non-medical people are known for their Medical illiteracy! But my recent experience tells me that people from the medical field are also not far from us, when some event, which does not happen on day to day basis, occurs. At least Jaya and I have a curiosity bug so whenever someone known to us has a health event, which we don’t know much about, we go to Google baba and ask him questions, I think sometimes he gets fed up of our questioning!
Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Health literacy is dependent on individual and communication skills of lay persons and professionals.
I was detected with vocal cord carcinoma five years back, I avoid using word cancer, as carcinoma sounds fancier! I was hardly aware of the treatment. The only words I knew were radiations and chemotherapy! Sachin, Priya (She is a doctor)and Jaya took up the googling part and I opted to face radiations! I thought at that time, that one or two radiations are given to attack and hopefully beat the cancer back. Then maybe a few chemo tablets, and I would be done! But that is not how it was done. For my carcinoma, Immunotherapy was a better treatment in place of Chemo. There were 34 radiations! I simply did not know anything about cancer treatment. Ok, I will share with you the knowledge I picked up. 1 or 2 radiations are given as a palliative treatment when the patient is in real pain. But in that case, it is not THE treatment. When the possibility of a patient getting cured is good, 20/30/40 radiations are given depending on factors too complex for me to understand. Various improved therapies are given as newer ones are made available to mankind. Chemo remains cost effective, as it is a well proven old therapy.
Recently, a friend called me to seek an appointment with a neuro physician from my family. His 40-year daughter had difficulty in walking. Our common orthopaedic surgeon friend suggested taking advise of a neuro physician. They took the treatment and the lady is advised a certain injection to be taken, life-long! This lady had finally reached a doctor, five years late. The story does not end here. My friend while talking with the doctor said that he also has diabetes which is well under control. But he also said that he was required to perform dialysis twice a week, most of his teeth are damaged due to diabetes. What is the meaning of controlled diabetes? Do these people give such a low importance to their health? How can they not know about the illness they have after what they go through? Do they not want to accept it? How could my friend say that he has controlled diabetes?
I have chatted with a few friends, who are doctors. The various reasons for the apathy shown have come out. Mainly its human nature to avoid facing facts! If I do my yearly check-up and find that there is an issue, instead, why not delay it by a few months. Some are like butterflies, who go from one doctor to another and keep on going. This they do till they get an advise which is close to their expectation. I know of someone who went to ten different doctors for his cartilage problem. Nine said that surgery is needed, one said let us try medicines and physiotherapy. When asked, he claims that he is doing good, but cannot ride his big bike, his leg pains. Cannot drive a non-automatic car as he is in pain if he is required to operate the clutch pedal.
Then there are some patients, who have monetary difficulties, which is understandable. Some have a marriage in the family so will get themselves operated after the marriage, acceptable. But some will postpone their blood sugar checking, want to do it after they come back from their dream holiday! Reason? If sugar values are bad then they can’t binge on their holidays. A friend is doing Dixit diet, recent “In Thing”, making rounds on WhatsApp! It’s a good program suggested by a medical doctor, with a rider. Take it up under your doctor’s advice. This friend binged on ice creams and sodas and chocolates for a couple of months. On checking, for sugar value found them alarming; in normal course too, he is a dibetic. A month after starting this diet, his sugar values miraculously improved, they still showed that he has diabetes. He is claiming that due to this diet, there was a terrific improvement. The simple fact was that since he binged his values were bad and when he stopped those sweet things his values improved!
Now here is a very interesting story. Here both husband and wife are doctors. The lady is having some symptoms for 15 days. Initially, her husband says, oh you are getting old now. So, to prove him wrong, she would try and show that things are normal. After a few days, her husband says, “See, I was telling you, show positive intent and you will be all right.” She calls Jaya (they are friends) and shares her health issues. Jaya suggested that she should see a specialist. Four more days are wasted in this. Finally, she goes to see the specialist! Both were somehow bent on following their physician’s advice, rather than meeting a specialist. The husband drops her at the clinic and goes for some “important work”; to him she is just making a fuss. The specialist checks her, does some tests. The doctor diagnoses a major health issue and insists that she should immediately get hospitalized. Our friend says, “Is it ok if I get hospitalized later in the evening after my husband comes back?” Specialist insists and gets her hospitalized. She said that 15 days back when the first symptoms were felt, there was a possibility that a major event had started in her body. Fortunately, it has not culminated in a catastrophe. We need to arrest this event as early as possible.
With both being doctors they are expected to have better knowledge. Why they did not want to meet the specialist? In the best case scenario, the result would be a false alarm. But life is never simple. The catastrophe did not happen but her body was hurtling in that direction. How do you analyze this event? What could have led this couple, especially the husband with a casual approach? Even after treatment had started, he did not meet the specialist for two days, to ask details. One day we went to meet her. In the same hospital, we met a common friend, also a doctor! Our friend still does not want to accept the diagnosis, it seems. He told the common friend, “My wife is having suspected xxx!”
Another case was a person who had some uneasiness, he could not use his left hand to get his two-wheeler down from the stand. His left eye looked to be drooping. After a couple of days, he took a decision to see an eye specialist! He explained the details but the doctor felt that eyesight was ok; the beauty was that the eye doctor also did not realize that something different was happening. To cut the story short he was forced to see the correct specialist. The specialist on checking said that a major event could be happening in his body. He was rushed to the hospital and in a couple of days, he underwent brain surgery; he was fast going towards stroke. In a couple of months more, he needed to undergo triple heart bypass surgery. Ok, I understand that a commoner may not understand that he was going to have brain stroke. But when left eye and left hand were having a problem, he should have gone to a physician at least! Though finally, it was a neuro physician who diagnosed the issue. When the body is near such a catastrophe, I am sure there is a strong signal from the body that something is seriously wrong! But people just seem to miss it!
How to make people aware of such things? How to train them to look for body signals? My worry is if trained doctors can misjudge the situation so badly, non-doctors are obviously going find it difficult. Body or mind has the natural instinct of fight or flight. Why such instincts do not come into act in situations mentioned?
Friends, I strongly urge all of you to be safe rather being sorry! Don’t go by statement that doctors always squeeze you! They only work for money these days. Don’t keep on doctor hopping. Go back to GP concept. Keep on going to the same physician regularly. He or she will always give you the right pointers as they know about your health conditions the best. And don’t avoid or postpone that yearly check-up. Its for us!
Pramod's Blog 