Last Updated on October 17, 2023 by Shabnam Sengupta
A senior diabetologist with over 15 years of clinical and research experience having more than 50 research papers to his credit, Dr Rakesh Parikh, MBBS, FCPS – Medicine, FRCP (Glasgow), Fellow of American College of Endocrinology(FACE), Diploma in Diabetology (Mumbai University), is the Consultant Diabetologist at CKS Hospital, Jaipur.
What is the best thing you enjoy about treating patients?
Doing our best to save lives and help people who are suffering is the finest part of our job. Being able to help the society with our hard-earned education and skills gives you a different kind of feeling that can not be described in words.
When is a patient easy to treat?
A patient who comes with full faith in you, who shares all his medical details correctly, listens to doctor’s advise carefully, and follows it properly and is immune to the medical misinformation flooded on internet is an ideal patient to treat.
When is a patient difficult to treat?
Patients who doesn’t want to go to a doctor and are brought by their family member forcefully are the most difficult to treat. Because patient himself is the most important person of treating team. Also there are patients who are preoccupied with misinformation related to their condition and are difficult to treat. Some patients simply feel that visiting a doctor or doing a battery of tests would suffice and they usually do not follow the advise given by doctors, it becomes difficult to treat them.
How helpful is it to the treatment course, if the patient is knowledgeable about the treatment procedure, benefits, risks etc.
It is actually very much helpful if the patient is aware of some basics provided he has the correct information gathered from reliable sources. There is a subset of patients that fits in this category. The job becomes difficult when the patient has acquired this knowledge the sources that only spread medical misinformation. A very common experience is that patients think that a 1000mg tablet is very strong medicine or a costly medicine is very powerful.
How can a patient improve his knowledge about the treatment procedure (apart from consulting the doctor, of course)?
Internet is the best source, although the patients should be careful while choosing their sources. Any reputed/verified health related websites, content from reputed medical journals, blogs of qualified healthcare professionals are good sources. Additionally, friends and relatives of the patients who are medically qualified can also be a good source.
How medical misinformation act as a problem in the overall treatment procedure?
Medical misinformation is a very big problem. There are few common myths related to diabetes that we see in majority of patients such as – if I start taking diabetes medicines, I will become dependent on medicines; OR I don’t need to start treatment if I have no symptoms; the diabetes medicines will harm my kidneys and liver; Insulin is the last resort and makes you dependent on it for life, etc.
A few advice that you always give to your patients (about staying healthy, about escaping misinformation, etc.)
A healthy lifestyle is the first and most important component of treatment. You should only consult a doctor who is medically qualified to treat your condition. Stay away from the free advise given by people who are not qualified to do so. Stay away from online sources that are not reliable.
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