Let's Play Doctor-Doctor

We’ve all been extremely ill at some time or another. It’s scary. So scary, in fact, that we will follow any advice given to us by an expert. We’ll allow strangers to touch us in ways we won’t even let our loved ones touch us. “Having problems with your colon? I have just the thing for you”, says the doctor. “Just pull down your pants, lie on your side, and I’ll stick this probe up your anus.” We nod our heads, pull down our pants, without any hesitation, and even manage a smile. Boy, this might even be fun!

I find the relationship between doctors and patients quite disconcerting. In a way, doctors remind me of clergy. We put so much faith in these mere mortals, trusting their knowledge and moral values to be of the highest standards. We’re so intimidated by religion and medicine, that we blindly accept the need for an intermediary.

It’s not as if most doctors are trying to empower patients. No, they prefer to keep the mystery alive, to keep patients in the dark, so that we will continue trusting them without question. They speak in medical jargon, more foreign to the ear than Mandarin. They point at X-rays and CT scans, using 20-letter words to explain a diagnosis, as if the patient should know exactly what they’re talking about. Meanwhile, all you see when you look at the scan is a picture not much different from a Rorschach inkblot test (Ooh, that dark spot looks just like a butterfly!).

Even their handwriting is indecipherable – medication prescriptions seem to be written in code, as if the doctor is sharing a secret with the pharmacist (Prescription: Give Ms. Smith 20 pills – just make sure they’re bitter, because then she’ll believe that they’ll cure her sinusitis. Oh, and throw in a few diet pills, because her ass is really fat).

We gratefully accept the prescription, pleased to know that all our problems will now be solved. On the way out you pass the receptionist, who hands you a bill for R500-00. The itemized bill is also written in code (ICD-10 Procedural Codes for medical aid purposes):
• 40H00Z (translation: putting up with a hypochondriac for a full 5 minutes!!)
• 67X0l0 (translation: sticking a ice cream stick in patient’s mouth and having her say “Aaaah”)
• 35L09D (translation: shining a light in patient’s ear, as it’s mandatory no matter what’s wrong with the patient)
• 683J04 (translation: an extra charge for having to breathe in the patient’s foul breath)
• 2G03T8 (translation: a little something extra, so I can add more to my kid’s university fund)

Then you drive to the nearest pharmacy to collect your placebos. Here you’re faced with one of nature’s most inexplicable phenomenon: the fact that the pharmacist is always standing on a platform and looking down on patients. Honestly, what’s up with that? The strange thing is that I have actually asked a few pharmacists about the raised platform phenomenon, and none of them could ever explain the reason for it.

Finally you get home and pop the first of many tablets. Most people leave it at that. If you’re like me, you continue to read the information sheet inside the medication package. Curiosity inevitably turns to horror when I reach the Side-Effects section. This section usually includes scary words like: hemorrhage, mania, heart failure, decreased libido, and kidney failure. So, my sinusitis will be cured, but I’ll end up being a bleeding maniac, with a marriage in ruins due to my decreased libido, while trying to pass a kidney stone. Just great! Thank heavens for the risk of heart failure – at least death will bring an end to my living hell!

I don’t even want to get into expressing my thoughts on pharmaceutical companies. Suffice it to say that the anagram for the word “Pharmaceutical” is “A malpractice, Uh!” I’ll just end my rant about the medical profession with the following food for thought: Have you ever wondered why it is that a doctor’s place of work is called a “practice”? It’s worrying, to say the least.