MEDICAL LEARNING 8

 

Many of my patients of heart problems ask me, doctor do I need a surgery.

Today all the specialists keep on advising surgery. The patients are also tuned that they will be advised surgery once they go to the specialist or a corporate hospital.

 

          Let me tell you, that the surgery should be the last resort in any disease ...never the first.

You cannot replace what nature has gifted you. Preserve it as much as you can.

 

  I am into medical life for the last 45 years. I have gone through the era when almost every abdominal pain was being operated as appendicitis if they happened to go to the surgeons. Today you do not find this surgery. Then I went through the era of Open and proceed for abdominal complaints. This was the era prior to ultrasound. Remember how many times, nothing was found. Today again this surgery has disappeared.

 

           Then came the golden era of cardiac Surgery and angioplasty. Patient was ready to do anything to collect money for a cardiac surgery and stent. This era is slowly fading away but the people still feel good and proud to do a heart surgery. Fear is the biggest reason for a sick man to fall a victim to such surgery. There are a number of other surgeries advised by all different specialists where the patient can be treated better conservatively and with less cost.

 

Let me tell you, every heart condition does not need a surgery. Yes cardiac surgery is a great achievement for medicine but it should be done only when it is genuinely required. There are definite indications for heart surgery. Many patients with heart surgery and angioplasty would have done better with a good medical line of treatment and life style management.

 

The newest fad in this line is liver transplant, if you can afford. I have seen some people with just mildly raised liver enzymes who are advised liver transplant. These people have been cured completely with some medical line of treatment. The corporate hospitals take the help of NGOs who are very proud to propagate these ideas with a large number of free camps for which the total expense is borne by the hospitals and the NGOs boast of social service. I am sure better sense will prevail here.

           I would suggest, anytime, any doctor or hospital suggests a surgery, please ask for a second opinion from a well-educated and neutral doctor who always thinks in the betterment of patient rather than of earning more money.

     Make a second opinion a routine whenever you have a dilemma and a surgery is advocated.....