iRADiX

Patients have become consumers. Doctors are service providers. If we blind ourselves to the business aspects of healthcare, then it is only at our own peril. When the insurance companies come, they need certain criteria to be met before your hospital is given the contract. When the maintenance contracts are signed, there are cold blooded calculations to be made by large transnational companies on the other side.

No effective modern Radiology manager can be blind to these realities. No idealism, only social and production material relations seem to be left.

Let us practice in a way which enhances communications so that the personality of the person who is interacting comes through.

As radiologists, we use Imaging sciences to come to certain truths about the processes going inside a patient.

But there are some other truths, which help us grow as humans.

The patient should get a sense of the person as a human being and not just as a business-like transaction.

While keeping an appropriate balance to maintain professional boundaries, we can try to make patients feel like they have been related on a personal level.

Does having a photograph on the form change the way you report?

That set me thinking. Over the years, I have had some beautiful relations with patients who have changed my approach, to radiology, medicine and life.

Usually we have transactional relations-business like dealings. A transformational relationship is something which changes your nature.

As a radiologist, I have tried to live by the Credo that any possible diagnosis should be open to you. It is our duty to look beyond the obvious, establish or refute alternative diagnosis, and also look for possible changes due to metabolism, medicines or therapy.