Helping patients make sense of their medications

It is difficult for patients to manage their medications. The elderly , among many others , tend to take several medications in different doses at varying times of the day. There are often complaints of numerous side effects of these medicines, some of the complications a result of cross reactions between these medicines.

The law mandates pharmaceutical companies provide information about the medicine on its package. The purpose of these leaflets is to help patients understand their medicines , so they take them properly . But there are numerous complaints against these leaflets, for instance, tiny or cramped text, bad printing, hard to understand warning symbols, incoherent instructions, complicated language etc. 

Dr. Malpani speculates how many people even bother to read these leaflets, let alone understand them.

These leaflets are not patient-friendly. They are apparently designed to be compliant with the law alone. The attitude of pharmaceutical companies by publishing information in this manner seems to be self-protection against potential lawsuits by aggrieved patients than to actually prevent a health risk for patients. Since the leaflets are barely readable at best, a chance at patient education is lost. Thus, patients are oblivious to the side effects and complications of the drugs they are consuming. Read more about health literacy at http://blog.drmalpani.com/2012/11/how-promoting-health-literacy-can-help.html

Choosing a good IVF doctor

A good doctor can assure you good medical care. Almost all patients blindly believe their personal doctor to be highly capable. But in truth, it is hard to gauge the competency of your doctor.

Patients lack the technical expertise to judge the ability of the doctor. Therefore, they use secondary sourced of information and surrogate markers to select a doctor. Recommendations about the doctor from a friend or a family member or another doctor as considered acceptable reviews about the doctor’s competence. Apart from this, people judge their doctor by his bedside manner, the ambience of his clinic, his professional reputation or any newspaper articles about him. Sadly, these reviews are not sufficient and are unreliable at best.

To ensure the best medical care from a competent doctor, it is essential to spend your time and energy to do your homework. Information Therapy can be used to evaluate the most important criteria of technical competence for your treatment of concern. Contrary to popular belief, is is a simple task thanks to technology. For instance, at an IVF clinic, always insist on seeing photographs of your embryos. Good IVF clinics have the clinical expertise to create good embryos and they will have photographs to this effect, which they will be glad to show to a patient. It might not be wise to trust an IVF doctor, if he hesitates to show you the photographs of your embryos.

Get to know more here http://blog.drmalpani.com/2012/11/how-to-keep-your-doctor-honest.html

Can technology help doctors understand patients better?

Patients have a growing concern that the influx of computers in clinical care will greatly depersonalize clinical care. Their complaints against technology concern the disruption of the doctor-patient relationship as the doctor might pay more attention to the computer screen than the patient. In accordance with this idea, doctors do find technology highly interesting, especially to review medical reports, images and scans as they consider it a part of their scientific core competence. Then again, it is unfair to pit digital technology against humanistic clinical care. Instead of a confrontation of such extreme sides it is wiser to have technology work in tandem with a humanistic approach for the benefit of both the doctor and patient. Rather than a distraction, technology helps doctors diagnose easily and better, thus, sparing them more time to interact personally with their patients.

The first requisite for a doctor upon seeing a patient is medical, that is, to correctly diagnose the condition and design a treatment plan. Doing a good job of this as a clinical scientist is a necessary prerequisite for the doctor to move on to the next part of handling the patient’s emotions and psyche. A doctor must be equipped with the skill set required to perform these two complimentary tasks. Read more about the tasks at http://blog.drmalpani.com/2012/11/how-computers-can-help-doctors-to.html

How the wrong infertility treatments can reduce your fertility

Infertility doctors, sometimes, act illogically. A patient whose burning wish is to have a baby is often subjected to meaningless treatment procedures. This can take up a lot of time and can possibly cause pregnancy to be delayed. There are complaints against the hostility of these procedures towards the patients and that these processes are capable of wasting their fertile years.

Here are some instances of infertility doctors improperly treating patients, which result in a decline in the patient’s fertility instead of a successful pregnancy.

Earlier, for a couple having complaints of infertility, the woman would be examined for anti-sperm antibodies. Anti-sperm antibodies were thought to kill the sperm, thus causing immunological infertility. This condition was treated by prescribing the use of condoms to the couple during intercourse. This was based on the assumption that continual exposure to sperm prompted the woman’s body to create anti-sperm antibodies, so the use of condoms for at least 6 months would shield the immune system from the foreign antigens present on the sperm. Conjecturing that this would help reduce the anti-sperm antibody levels in the woman, it was believed she could conceive immediately after condoms were discontinued. Malpani Fertility Clinic reveals that it is improbable for anti-sperm antibodies to play a major role in causing infertility as these are very commonly found in fertile women too. Malpani Fertility Clinic suggests that it is a waste trying to “treat” these antibodies. Read more at http://blog.drmalpani.com/2012/12/infertility-doctors-and-irrational.html

More than meets the eye at free medical camps

From free fertility camps of IVF clinics for aspiring mothers to urology hospitals offering free screening for prostate cancer, free medical specialty camps offered by several hospitals are widely conducted everywhere.

Be it cataract surgery or family planning, there is no doubt as to the popularity of medical camps in India. Initially intended to provide medical services to poor patients residing in remote areas, medical camps made it possible for rural citizens to avail of health care services without having to travel far to a city. Run by philanthropists and charitable organizations, most of these camps were relatively inexpensive methods of ensuring that healthcare services were available even to the poor.

It appears that medical camps are more of a promotional campaign for hospitals these days. Needless to say, free camps offered by hospitals generate a lot of public attention, bringing to emphasis their dedication to community service. Beware though, that many of these medical camps might be cheating gullible patients with their ulterior motive of helping hospitals build a database of potential patients to whom they can sell their services. Many complaints have been received about their misdiagnosis and profit mongering over-treatment for a health condition that was better off untouched. More facts revealed at http://blog.drmalpani.com/2012/12/why-free-medical-camps-can-be-bad-for.html