1) Doesn't know the actual names of the medications s/he takes.
2) Thinks telling the doctor, "It's a round, white pill" actually helps.
3) Tolerates even the most severe symptoms ( e.g. chest pain ) till the weekend or public holiday period is over before flooding the clinics and ERs, hence the dreaded Monday surge.
4) Has lots of concerned relatives who don't communicate with one another and hound you constantly for repeated updates.
5) Has relatives who would rather spend 15 minutes chasing nurses than bring the patient to the toilet themselves.
6) Signs consent forms for procedures and retains less than 50% of the information given.
7) Thinks by taking diabetes / hypertension / hypercholesterolemia meds, this entitles him/her to eat whatever the heck s/he wants.
8) Thinks waiting an hour warrants a letter to the Forum Page.
9) Thinks the Forum Page is a great way to scare healthcare workers.
10) Assumes that "all my medical records are in your computer, what."
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10 comments:
Someone should write a blog post entitled "A Typical Singapore Doctor".
1) Expects me to know what medication I take.
2) There are other kinds of round white pills??
3) Expects us to see doctors constantly. I wouldn't see a doctor even if I thought I had serious ailments. I would rather just die.
etc...
Points 1+2 - I rest my case.
Point 3 - be my guest.
hmm... in reference to SA's post, I've read it 3 times, and I still can't decide if he meant for it to be taken in rhetorical jest.
but for the non-medical people reading it, it's kinda like expecting your banker/financial adviser to know all the details of your financial health and deciding everything for you. and you not bothering to know if he invested your money in GIC bonds or mini-bonds... it's not your responsibility after all right?
Just a tongue in cheek response. Here's my ONE cent worth on Singapore doctors
A typical Singaporean doctor:
1. Clerks patients 7- 10 hours after admission because of resource issues, doesn't say sorry and expects patients to understand their stress levels telepathically.
2. Thinks almost all patients are FON (Full of Nonsense)automatically, especially those who ask questions and give opinions.
3. Treats you much better as a patient when you know someone in the hospital with a black tag.
4. Spends one to three mins in consult with a patient in the hope of clearing the daily case load and expects patients to follow instructions on taking meds, to be educated on their illness and recovery, remember the side effect of their drugs, understand viable treatment options, etc.
5. Thinks every complaint is not valid till a call comes from the medical director.
6. Thinks smiling and having basic courtesy to patients means you are not working (suffering) hard enough at work.
8. Assumes patients retain all information on procedures after a signature and when they are naked under a paper sheet.
Anonymous of 11 Nov 23:19,
Mostly joking, but with some elements of truth inside.
I can't tell if the second part of your comment was meant for the author of this blog post or for me.
Trying to think from the patient's point of view...
1) Doesn't know the actual names of the medications s/he takes.
> Maybe because the patient is not as well as educated as you? But they can usually tell you what ailment the medicine is for. And they are right, you *can* check it up on the computer, unless they got it at a private hospital.
2) Thinks telling the doctor, "It's a round, white pill" actually helps.
> It does. At least you know it's not an oblong yellow pill. :)
3) Tolerates even the most severe symptoms ( e.g. chest pain ) till the weekend or public holiday period is over before flooding the clinics and ERs, hence the dreaded Monday surge.
> Inexplicable. Maybe they just don't want to trouble their kids but realise over the weekend that they cannot tahan anymore.
4) Has lots of concerned relatives who don't communicate with one another and hound you constantly for repeated updates.
> Yes. The hospital should consider having an official system where only one or two relatives are allowed to request for updates.
5) Has relatives who would rather spend 15 minutes chasing nurses than bring the patient to the toilet themselves.
> Annoying. I guess they feel that it is the nurses' job.
6) Signs consent forms for procedures and retains less than 50% of the information given.
> Maybe because the medical jargon is unfamiliar to them. But this is not true for everyone.
And may I add, sometimes the doctor or nurse provides us with less than 50% of the information. E.g. Tells us about the procedure in one or two sentences, then asks, "Do you have any questions?" How would we know what questions to ask, if we only heard of the operation on the day that you told us we need the op?
7) Thinks by taking diabetes / hypertension / hypercholesterolemia meds, this entitles him/her to eat whatever the heck s/he wants.
> They live to eat. In fact, many doctors are like that too.
8) Thinks waiting an hour warrants a letter to the Forum Page.
> I have never seen such a letter. Was it only one hour?
9) Thinks the Forum Page is a great way to scare healthcare workers.
> It's the only way they can get themselves heard since the hospital's quality service staff are not so forthcoming.
10) Assumes that "all my medical records are in your computer, what."
Aren't they? That is what we have been led to believe. Unless they were seen at a different cluster or at a private hospital, the information should be in the computer system.
In response to Anonymous' post above:
I've seen many well-educated S'porean patients who don't know what meds they take, and yes, think the shape / colour of the pill is enough for the doctor to pinpoint the exact name of the drug.
Contrast this with the educated foreign patients - both Asian and Westerners - who know their meds / doses by heart, or even better, carry their medication lists with them. They can also recite complex medical terms, e.g. deep vein thrombosis.
With Singaporeans, even those who speak good English can only muster, "Oh, I have a 'heart problem', but dunno what kind of problem it is. I THINK I had a heart scan / ballooning done." Then I wait for the usual "Check your computer lah."
Yes, we do have most of their records in our system, but trust me, the system fails on and off, and I've gone through hell a few times when the server crashed while I was working.
And there's a limit to the amount of medical history we have in the computer. Outpatient records and cardiac investigations aren't available in soft copy, and in my institution, patient files > 2 years old are moved to the warehouse and can't be retrieved outside office hours.
Not having important information at hand, especially in an emergency situation, can have dire consequences. I just feel that S'poreans are rather indifferent about their health, and this makes my job that much harder.
in summary, it's your own life. take charge of your own health and start finding out more about whatever disease you have, coz no one else is responsible for you.
~medicalgrounds~
My answers to each point SL made are in brackets below:
1. Clerks patients 7- 10 hours after admission because of resource issues, doesn't say sorry and expects patients to understand their stress levels telepathically.
(7-10 hours too long liao la, patient will have died. We do say sorry, but only for the sole reason of having made the patient wait a little longer than normal. We have to prioritize who to attend to first especially in a public hospital when patient load is high. Obviously the more serious ones transferred from the A & E should be attended to first. Secondly, there are MUCH MUCH fewer staff at night which is typically where most of the new cases come admitted. Lesser staff to patient ratio and hence obviously you'll have to wait longer to be clerked)
2. Thinks almost all patients are FON (Full of Nonsense)automatically, especially those who ask questions and give opinions.
(asking questions is good. But keep them valid to the scenario. I have seen patients asking me the weirdest of questions, one even asking where i live, what school i attended etc. While i appreciate the friendly gesture to build rapport, i'd say sometimes when things get tad bit too personal, we have to draw the line and that's why we go back and restrict the conversation to the clinical presentation)
3. Treats you much better as a patient when you know someone in the hospital with a black tag.
(Of course la. If you were a investing in a company and knew the CEO, of course the service guys are going to treat you better right?)
4. Spends one to three mins in consult with a patient in the hope of clearing the daily case load and expects patients to follow instructions on taking meds, to be educated on their illness and recovery, remember the side effect of their drugs, understand viable treatment options, etc.
(The case load has to be cleared daily, regardless of how many cases there are. Unless doctors are robots and there's no need for us to return home to rest, then by all means, we can definitely take an hour each time to clerk a patient by the bedside.
Patients should partake in the responsibility of their own health. No? It's ultimately your life. Taking responsibility to read up more about your illness, knowing your medication doses and side effects is a necessity isn't it? Look at the recent chemotherapy case in KK. If the patient didn't know about his dosage regimen, she would have presented even later with even more complications from the misdosage of her chemo pump)
5. Thinks every complaint is not valid till a call comes from the medical director.
(complaints to the hospital should go towards the complaints department. Every patient has the right to complain.
However, do note that this is a public hospital. Heathcare workers aren't servants at patients' beck and call and have to attend to other patients as well. Hence don't expect us to attend to the complain immediately.)
6. Thinks smiling and having basic courtesy to patients means you are not working (suffering) hard enough at work.
(when we don't smile it doesn't mean we aren't happy to see you. We have to concentrate on assessing your clinical status, your severity, think about the management and tailoring drug therapy, deciding if you need help from social worker etc all at the same time.
When we come to see you at the bedside, alot of things go thru our heads at the same time and we take our job seriously. What matters really is your health. If you think about the whole thing, smiling really pales in comparison)
8. Assumes patients retain all information on procedures after a signature and when they are naked under a paper sheet.
(if you pen your signature on a consent form, it is a legal document. You have a duty and responsibility to know what you are in for before signing the dotted line in any document)
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