Reshaping medical industry & medical profession/Doctor: #Doctor assault

    Routine instances of verbal abuse,  threat  and physical assaults are common incidents. Usually media justifies assaults on doctors, administration and courts are of little help. Doctors suffer for  no fault of theirs. Many become punching bags for the inept medical system and invisible medical industry. The threat of physical assault is quite real these days.  Recently, even female doctors have not been spared by mobs. Silence of prominent social people, celebrities and society icons on this issue is a pointer towards increasingly uncivilized mindset of society. But these are not without having long term effects. There will be definite effects on how medical profession and industry reshapes  in coming times.

1.  Poor advertisement for  Private medical college seat- Doctor assault is definitely a poor advertisement  for the medical students, who want to buy a private medical college seat by paying millions. Medical colleges are owned by rich and powerful.  There is possibility of loss of business. Why should one pay millions and bear  risk of being beaten or killed, while doing such a  stressful duty. People will be fearful to be doctors on a free seat, leave alone on the paid seat. It will be a naïve idea to pay millions and be a doctor.

       So  “loss in business” is something which can force administrators and  government to make laws against doctor assault and lawlessness against doctors.  That is the only silver lining  of doctor assaults. If private medical colleges are to survive and attract rich candidates  and earn money, a law to protect doctors is a must.

2. Closure-Bundling out single practitioner and doctor run small practices: small nursing homes and single or doctor couple practices depend on a good doctor patient relationship. In  an era of deep mistrust  generated by media, it is difficult for individual doctor to have community practices, which were cheap and helpful locally. Doctors can not work with fear and in an unprotected environment. Automatically these smaller units will cease to exist and practically   It is a natural consequence of such incidents. There will be scanty friendly neighborhood doctors or their quality will  suffer.

3. Lesser   doctors for emergency work: as working in life and death situations is attracting heavy risk to doctor’s life, there will be less enthusiasm to work in emergency situations. If the  situations continue, it will be more of a forced decision rather than  elective to work in emergencies.

4. Corporate health care will be a way of life: when doctors owned small practices becoming extinct and  remain rudimentary or  cease to exist, the investor run big set ups  will be the only option. The big systems will be run on business model and doctors will be better protected workers in  the industry. That will become way of life as far as health care is concerned.
5. Doctor & nurses turning into cheap labor: biggest threat of the oppressive system is the minimizing  independence of doctors as professionals.  Dependence on investor driven big health systems will increase. So abundance of skilled manpower will be available to investor led healthcare, and doctors and nurses  end up  being converted    into cheap labor for industry.
6. Good for administrators and health managers: the dream of health industry to have cheap skilled manpower, is not that distant now. Security risk will close independent practices and they will be available for safer zones,  which for administrators and investor is a dream coming true. Less expensive abundant skilled manpower is an administrator’s delight.
7. Demoralization of doctors and nurses: needless to say, it is one of darkest era for medical professionals. They are ebbed from all sides. Medical profession reeks of desperation and desolation, with not any one from power corridors to protect them, no courts, no human right commission for them to save the saviors from its decrepit state. Real medical profession has been devastated with little hope of regeneration.
8. Survival of  commercially fittest doctors: doctors who survive in changing environment will be commercially fittest, able to entrench themselves in changing business environment, able to wriggle through legalities, well connected, glib talking, able to connect to industry. Doctors, who  do not possess above qualities, will not survive the health markets.
9. Medical Community broken to single  suffering individuals: Every doctor knows that some thing is really wrong happening against the profession.  Not only every day minor irritants but there  are recurring episodes of blatant cruelty against doctors. The whole profession is being criticized openly in the garb of stray incidences or in cases of genuine poor prognosis. Each and every doctors  wants  to react.  But no one knows  really “ how to do it”. There is no unity  amid this chaotic problem. The community has been broken  and pushed to behave as single suffering   whatever way  they choose to react ,  the slightest reaction may  invite the ire of many unknown people, may be mighty and revengeful. More over, it is the individuals, not a community, that remains  non-united,  whose  career   and life is at stake.
10. Effect on patients: at present,  leave it to wisdom of readers.