Without the White Coat
By Florentino P. Alerta II, M.D.

Medical practice with a heart… didn't I tell you so?

Scanning one local daily recently I stumbled upon a column (entitled “Most expensive monobloc chair in Iloilo City”) which put a smile in my face. This was what I have been saying again and again, that business has already penetrated the medical practice turning those who practice medicine without a compassionate heart. But let's take a look at who's behind the said medical institution. Well, I need not say more the writer had best described it as “heartless, cold and impersonal.”

Had medical practice come to this point? Medical practice due to the insurgence of specialties have become too impersonal and uncaring. The physician that is in front of you will just cure that disease or illness that you have, and address that organ system or group of tissues, but there is one thing that he/she forgets to address… you, the patient, as a breathing human being in front of him merely separated by a barrier called the consultation table (could this be the cause of an impersonal relation with the patient?). The medical schools or our mentors may have taught us the art of treating or rendering cure, but it had never taught us to become compassionate human beings, that we tend to forget that as doctors we should care.

The said writer's bad experience with that religious medical institution in Gen. Luna Street may have shown us where medical practice is heading. Medical schools may have churned out hundreds of graduates every year, but the big question that hangs ahead is: “Will these future doctors follow attitude of the ones ahead of them (a heartless, cold and impersonal physician)?. As doctors, we all try to ask ourselves: where has medical practice gone… to the dogs?

Just an advice to the people in the emergency room, always show that beautiful smile, since you are in the frontline or the first impression that the patient encounters. Patients should be equally treated irregardless if he is rich or poor or poorly clothed or wears the most expensive jewelries or designer clothes. At least, in this area we still got one medical school that produces the “Christian doctors” that will not only treat or cure us all, but “doctors that will care”, the College of Medicine of Central Philippine University.

We can only hope that patient care will improve in our backyard. Why do most of the US medical facilities and institution prefer to hire and employ Filipino nurses and care givers? 'Coz we know how to care, then why can't we practice that caring here in our own medical wards and emergency rooms?

The CPU College of Medicine is affiliated with another caring medical facility, the Iloilo Mission Hospital. It is the medical institution that had set the standard of caring and patient comfort here in Iloilo(you should see their parking lot, it has a 200-car capacity). To end this column here's one line from the said article which really caught my attention: “I was suffering only from a wounded foot, but I could have suffered a massive heart attack when I would receive my bill after the confinement.” Well, that said it all, medical care is getting too expensive… (To be continued)