Thou art different, my doctor!!

Recently, a WhatsApp message appeared in one group where I am a member. The message went on to say "doctors have a sloppy, illegible handwriting. While looking at your medical prescription, have you ever wondered why doctors have such bad handwriting? We are sure all of us have had this thought. A doctor’s writing is not just bad but can get completely unreadable many a time. And obviously, it’s not like people with bad handwriting are attracted to study medicine. It’s not that all doctors have bad handwriting since forever. In most cases, their handwriting worsens over time." Since I worked as a Pharma sales guy, I certainly corroborate the opinion expressed above. But I also came across a few doctors who took extra ordinary care to make prescriptions legible. Someone like Dr.J.R.Prasad (Physician) of Khammam town had employed an assistant in his clinic to whom he would dictate the prescription and the same is neatly typed by the assistant before being handed out to the patient. During a recent chat with one of my former colleagues, I was told that Dr.A.V.Ramamurthy, a very senior doctor of Himayatnagar, Hyderabad was typing out his prescription to the patients on a portable typewriter even as early as in nineteen fifties. That's about the legibility of doctors' prescriptions.

When I started my career as a medical representative in 1972 in Guntur, I used to visit People's Poly Clinic, run by Marxist Communists for the benifit of middle and lower sections of the society. There was a doctor by name Jaswant Mohan in that polyclinic. Incidentally, he was the son of Makineni Basava Punnaiah who was a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Dr.Jaswant Mohan used to greet us (particularly those of us who belonged to MNC Pharma companies) as welcome you Looters of the world, pick pockets of the poor of India, grabbers of our country's wealth and such adjectives when we entered his chamber to promote our brands. All in jest, no doubt with no intention to hurt us as individuals but to express his indignation towards the MNCs as a communist. After a few years, while he was still young, he suffered a cardiac complication. Voila, he went to the capitalist country, USA for treatment! When he returned after recovering from his cardiac surgery and treatment, we saw a great change in his outlook towards our fraternity of Medical Representatives of MNCs in India. Since he had noticed that medicines used to cost 8-10 times more in the USA than in India for the same brands, his opinion about MNC Pharma companies in India had changed for good. He started to address us as friends of India instead of as looters of India like in earlier days. 

As a Pharma company, CIBA had a unique policy of pricing and kept all product prices very low. This had its own consequences on our sales. While we were patronized by a section of medical practitioners who were cost concious, we lost out in case of others. But I had a unique experience of a doctor in Chirala. Dr. Radhakrishna (surgeon) was a busy practitioner running a nursing home. He used to like and swear by our products in terms of their efficacy. He used to ask for and take samples from me for use in his family. But was quite reluctant to prescribe the same to his patients. When I asked him why he didn't prescribe, he said that his patients (all farmers from rich villages around Chirala) believed that efficacy of drugs were directly proportional to the drug price. Since our prices were low he shunned to prescribe. What is good for his family isn't good for his patients. All because they are low priced......how sad!!

There was another doctor in Chirala by name, Dr.Sridhar Rao. He was a private practitioner with a clinic in his own independent house with a small garden and an outer fencing. One day, a medical representative working for Sandoz (Baji) went to call on the doctor. He was a trifle too late. By the time he reached the place, the clinic was closed. Standing near the gate in the fencing, Baji found a man in shorts and towel tied as headgear tending to the plants. Baji asked the man if he will call the doctor so that he could meet him. That man replied saying that the doctor would not meet him as it was past clinic closing time. Baji told him "don't bother, just go and inform the doctor. I will tackle him regarding the time of meeting." At this, the man stood up and turned to face Baji. Removing the headgear towel said "Come on, let me see how you tackle me. I am the doctor." It was the doctor himself tending to the plants in his garden after closing the clinic as he was passionate about gardening. Baji had failed to recognise the doctor due to his unsual attire and also because he was able to see only doctor's back. With the doctor speaking like that, Baji didn't dare to stand at the gate even a moment longer and ran away from the scene instantly. Unexpected behaviour from even genial doctors aren't uncommon in our field work!