DOCTOR'S WORK- Behind the curtains

I generally make a chart of my working hours and put in my clinic. The schedule usually amounts to about 5- 6 hours of work daily. Seeing this, one full- time working friend of mine remarked, “I really envy you, you work so few hours”. Well, its true that my time- management could be the envy of most of my colleagues- but the declared business hours is not the only work I do. Most patients also labour under the impression that when the doctor is not available for consultation, the doctor is generally enjoying or maybe swatting flies! One patient has gone as far as suggesting that it should be made compulsory that doctors are available for consultation certain number of hours; after all the Government subsidizes their education and they need to pay back.

Firstly, a number of patients are regularly seen by doctors outside their declared working hours. Patients arriving late due to genuine reasons have to be accommodated. Patients arriving with emergency or alleged emergency problem have to be seen (without seeing one cannot determine if its emergency or not). Patients admitted in hospital have to be reviewed one or multiple times in a day. Surgeons have to do operations and deliveries have to be conducted, etc. All outside ‘declared’ outpatient timings.

Besides, seeing patients is only the ‘performance’ part of our work. For this a number of background activities have to be maintained on regular basis. It’s like the Abraham Lincoln saying- ‘Give me 10 hours to cut a tree and I will spend 9 hours sharpening my axe’. A very large amount of time, at least about 10-15 hours a week, has to be spent in reading up, attending educational programmes just to keep up with the latest developments in the medical field.  It has to be done continuously and regularly. No matter how small a practice, every doctor has to spend time studying their own practice so that one can respond intelligently to the needs of clientele. This is called research. This takes up at least 2 hours every week. Necessary administrative work like filing tax returns, getting different licences, staff recruitment and management, estate management also is part of private doctor’s professional work. This is really quite time- consuming work and takes almost an hour or two of the doctor’s time daily.

So the declared business hours (OPD timings) are actually just a part of your doctor’s work. Make the best of that time by scheduling appointment and arriving on time for it.