Inspired from Dr. Meenakshi Bharti’s blog on the same website (http://dentistryunited.com/mb6)about the way she was schooled in the USA, I’ve elaborated my experiences on the same note.
“Jack of all and master of none” is an age old saying, in the current era it goes like this “Jack of none, and master of nothing!”
There have been a lot of times when in school, I wondered that why I wasn’t allowed to complete any of the patients I started with.
I’m posted in oral medicine and radiology department, a patient walks in, I establish the diagnosis, note it down on the chart and tell him what all needs to be done, but, I can’t clearly tell him what he could settle for or what is the best and leave it on him to decide. I’m unanswerable to questions from patients like how much time the treatment would go on, and which one would precede the other as different departments would have a separate consult, a separate plan and a separate appointment schedule. I checked the patient, but I’m not his doctor. He would have many doctors, the first floor lady doctor, and the third floor muscular guy doctor and so on. In all this mess, nobody has the time for the patient or his psychology or his financial issues and other concerns. Even in other departments, I see that the patient requires prophylaxis before I start the endodontic treatment, but, I cannot help him as the appointment with the periodontology department couldn’t be scheduled before mine. This is not the case only with the undergraduates in school; the story remains the same for postgraduate students too. My postgraduate friends start their cases from the second year of their study, and some patients require a long time treatment as for an orthodontic case could go on for a really long time. The doctor completes his program in between the treatment, he walks away to a different life and the patient is again in a mess of the multiple doctors. Some would have a different line of treatment, some would have some other thing to say and the patient was informed about something else by the previous doctor. The patient can never make a responsible decision as nobody responsible ever told them clearly what all was possible, and what was the best and what could be done for him keeping in mind their financial aspect.
In the current setting, the student doesn’t adequately learn and practice all his skills together also they cannot master the skill to completion. The diagnosis to treatment plan journey is in bits and pieces and most of it is almost undiscovered. Most of the patients get so frustrated with the whole scene that they prefer pain to treatment, and I don’t see it as a healthy way of spreading awareness and concern about oral health. I’ve seen the plight of so many of them, that I always wanted a better way to treat them and not just do the procedure and get over with.
There are a lot of us who feel that way, a lot of us also have better ideas, and the only thing that we lack here is stepping forward and demanding the change and start treating patients. Hoping that DentistryUnited helps us get a step closer to the best!
About The Blogger : Dr. Rukhsar A Vankani is a young and charming dentist passed out of Pad . D Y Patil Dental College , INDIA. She intends to make it big in the world of Dentistry and as such is a good poet and a writer. She will be sharing her views on DentistryUnited every Tuesday. Email-dr.r.a.v@hotmail.com
Disclaimer : The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the author and need not reflect the views of DentistryUnited.com . For any clarification you can get in touch with the author directly at the address mentioned above.
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