Getting a second opinion doesn’t always work

People think that working on a medical beat makes me some sort of an expert and they ask me things that I have to often fudge fast.

Somebody asked me the other day what a colonoscopy was and whether it would hurt. Luckily, I knew what a colonoscopy was and had seen the instrument used for the procedure. A doctor had gleefully showed me the long, snaking coil of plastic that looked like something that comes out of a man’s insides in a sci-fi horror movie when you least expect something like that to happen. Only this time, instead of it coming out, it was delicately put inside the body to study what’s wrong.

There’s a tiny fibre-glass camera and a light attached at the head of the flexible tube that allows the doctor to see what’s happening inside the large intestine. The doctor showed me the controls and it felt like it was some sort of a video game my son plays. At the end of the tube, you can also fix a tiny clipper to cut out things and bring them out to examine.

I explained to the person what the procedure entailed and that it would not hurt, but only feel uncomfortable and that the doctor would have a nice break-time playing with the controls!

The other day when a colleague asked me whether she should go home or work out at the gym, as she wasn’t feeling too good. I told her she should go home and rest as working out would tire her out in her condition and would do her no good. She looked at me with respect and thought it was a pretty solid piece of advice.

Most of the time people never listen to the doctor. When they need medical advice they go to their friends or relatives or surf the internet.

Or they go to another doctor for a second opinion, which usually does not work out the way you want it as the second doctor will invariable diss the first doctor’s prescription and recommend something else. The other day, I went to a doctor to check out a skin rash. He looked at the area near my ankle and said he wanted a biopsy done, which panicked me. A biopsy usually conjures up images of things inside being snipped off, put in a jar filled with formaldehyde and sent to the lab for investigation.

A big relief

“We will take just a tiny piece of skin from this area,” the doctor told me. So I went to another clinic.

The other doctor made a face when I told her which doctor I had seen earlier. She advised me to get a cream and soak the area in warm water. It was a big relief to know that I didn’t have that Big C.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, goes to a doctor and tells him what he should prescribe for her. “I know how I feel more than he would ever know,” she retorts when told that she should listen to the doctor’s advice.

She buys the pills, takes one, throws out the lot and goes back to the doctor saying that it didn’t work, which puzzles him no end.

She believes the main job of doctors is to rook her off her money and that is why they ask her to undergo those umpteen tests. “I am not getting the CT-Scan done, they will inject blue dye inside me,” she once told us.

“The doctor’s too old and doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she added. “Then, why don’t you go to a younger doctor?” we asked her. “Oh, they are inexperienced and don’t know what they are doing,” she said.