What it takes to be a good doctor

Kiren Raj, a student from the International Medical University (IMU), was caught in a controversy when he posted a sexist comment on social media following the death of an actress earlier this month.

“Condolences. I hope all girls will learn a good lesson now. Never leave the pub without a guy. Man and woman should work together. We offer you a safe drive home and you offer us make out or sex. I mean girls like sex too, right. This is what happens when women think they can do anything on their own and be independent. Every woman need a man.”

Kiren is currently on home leave for two weeks and is receiving behavioural counselling with a formal disciplinary hearing on its way. There is also a petition with more than 70,000 signatures, calling for him to be barred from becoming a doctor.

The case of Kiren highlights the many individuals in our country who are either doctors or students who are studying to become one, who lack people skills such as empathy, compassion and respect.

Here are a few examples of medical professionals who lack people skills whom I have stumbled upon so far.

“Why don’t you learn to treat yourself?”

A few weeks ago, I took my mother to a clinic in Bukit Mertajam in mainland Penang for a consultation. She was experiencing nose congestion and a bad cough.

“I am taking cough syrup, drinking lots of warm water, consuming only soft, non-oily food and practising menthol steam inhalation for the past two weeks. What else should I do, doctor?” asked my mother.

“Since you are doing all that, why don’t you treat yourself as well? It will save you a trip to see me!” replied the doctor in a sarcastic tone.

“Sex will reduce your menstruation pain”

A couple of years ago, I accompanied my daughter, who was experiencing tremendous pain every time she had her menses, to meet a gynaecologist in University Hospital, Petaling Jaya.

“How old are you, girl?” he asked.

“I am 19,” my daughter replied.

“Good. Get married right after you graduate. That will help you with your problem,” the gynaecologist advised.

“You are imagining things”

A few years ago, I experienced terrible pain in my lower abdomen and found a muscle the size of a ping-pong ball protruding from my vaginal opening. So I went for a consultation at a clinic in Kuala Lumpur.

The gynaecologist got me lying on an examination bed and conducted a quick check-up. When I described the pain I was experiencing, he laughed at me. He told me that I was imagining things.

“Stop wasting my time”

When my son was a toddler, I took him to see a paediatrician at a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur. I was worried about the bruises emerging all over his body. The doctor informed me that my son was a haemophiliac.

In an attempt to understand the blood disorder better and to learn how to help my son, I began asking questions when the doctor responded harshly and silenced me.

“Look, I am the medical professional here. Even if I were to take the time to explain his condition to you, I doubt you will be able to understand. So let’s do both of us a favour and let me do my job, and you do yours.”

A good doctor requires good people skill

I believe there are many people like me who have their own stories of having gone through devastating interactions with doctors.

At the end of the day, these doctors, who believe that medicine is merely about illness, have got it wrong - it is actually more about people and life. To be a good doctor, one must have a good understanding of people, and not merely science.

A doctor's first priority is the health of the patient - but one cannot only depend on science to provide good healthcare to patients. In order to provide good and wholesome healthcare, doctors must be trained to build a good doctor-patient relationship – this can be achieved if doctors learn how to establish trust with their patients by being respectful and empathetic.

No time to be empathetic

Sadly, many doctors feel they do not have time to be empathetic as they have more important tasks at hand. However, what they fail to understand is that by being empathetic, doctors can identify the real source of a patient’s concern much better, hence saving a patient from having to make unnecessary repeated visits. Also, a lack of empathy can cause poor communication between doctors and patients, causing other problems.

Doctors who have a flood of loyal patients, who keep revisiting them over the years and recommending them to their social circles, are doctors with good people skills.

These are the doctors who make eye contact with their patients instead of glueing their eyes on the patient’s file; these are the doctors who pull up a chair and sit next to their patients instead of standing over them; these are the doctors who converse, instead of mouthing a one-way monologue; these are the doctors who pay attention to the patient and make every effort to find out what the patient is concerned about, instead of rushing the treatment in order to send the patient home.

Unfortunately, many medical professionals out there lack these skills.

This is why medical students like Kiren should be taught human psychology, instead of medical schools only emphasising medical knowledge and technical skills.

What is the standard of our medical students?

While we are caught up in this rage, driving us to collect tens of thousands of signatures to get a student like Kiren who lacks empathy out of medical school, we should not forget about the rest of the medical students in our country who might score good grades, but have appalling behaviour.

According to the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA), the government's projection for the doctor-population ratio in our country will be 1:400 in the next two years. With the projected population of Malaysia in the year 2020 being 33 million, this means we would end up with 82,500 doctors.

To cater for this large number of doctors, medical schools have begun mushrooming in our country, opening doors for students like Kiren.

If students with an appalling attitude like Kiren are accepted into these medical schools, the million dollar question to ask at this point would be - is this the current standard for our future doctors?

If IMU decides in its upcoming formal hearing that Kiren is fit to resume his studies to become a medical professional, perhaps we can establish that Kiren is the current standard for Malaysian doctors.

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a director, a struggling producer, a photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot. - Mkini