Doctor Angst & Depression

Although there are multiple factors that make being a modern-day doctor difficult and sometimes frustrating, there are undeniable complexities in today's practices that demand that the medical profession wakes up to a new reality.

Patient safety issues and quality of care are now increasingly demanded not just by healthcare administrators or regulators but also driven by rising patient and public expectations. Our own professional bodies recognise this and are trying to tamp down the sweeping changes that are accruing daily.

Escalating healthcare costs associated with high tech surgeries and medications are forcing healthcare policy makers to scrutinise the need, appropriateness, and quality of healthcare including physician practices, outcomes, including mistakes and avoidable medical errors. Because these invariably add on costs for all payers as well as increase medical litigation.

So like it or not, we just have to live in a new era of greater scrutiny of our work, our standards and quality of care. It's no longer acceptable to simply rely on our 'good' sense of beneficent intentions, that we've done our best as even endorsed by our humdrum run-of-the-mill mediocre peers... We're being held to higher standards that the public and patient can resonate with.

Defective or mis-aligned communications, poor outcome medical care or healthcare-related deaths will no longer be tolerated by more and more patients and their relatives, just as some goods and services are unacceptable if poorly delivered or when bought commercial products fall apart or cannot work or function as expected. So poorer outcomes even if predicted must be clearly defined and kept to a minimum without the appearance of shoddy or dispassionate care along the process...

Like it or not, more patients are asking that the care delivered must match the 'promises' or contractual agreements mutually understood as per informed consent. Medical errors due to poor or defective care would increasingly be seen as not just informed risks that the patient is forced upon to accept. If the results cannot be 'guaranteed' then be prepared for more grievances and complaints and therefore more medico-legal harassment for discovery and negligence/incompetence challenges! Ultimately our professional skills, experience, adequacy of training and maintenance of competency will be asked to show cause and proof, and will be called to answer... Which is why more and more healthcare regulator bodies have been forced to intervene and try to enforce pre-emptively.

Alas, all these expectations are imposing harder and higher standards of competency that if we wish to continue to practice, we must learn to accept or at least help to redefine, as the new paradigm of healthcare for the future. Being gripped by oppressive angst, or immobilised by arm-chair fury, or quiet despair will not help dissipate these challenges! These will come regardless.

Our response should be to address these squarely and collectively to define the issues more agreeably without being overwhelmed by others who might impose even higher professionally-debilitating/constricting standards that could then truly stifle or kill our medical practice altogether!