| Address: | Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400053 |
To whomsoever it may concern,
Last week, we had my father, mr. Anand gokarn, admitted in your hospital under the care of dr. Abhaya kumar. He had been experiencing intolerable pain around his back and arm for a fortnight before that. My humble understanding of the case was that the jelly like substance between the sixth and seventh cervical disk of my father’s spine had shifted, and consequently there was a portion of it bulging out and pressuring a nerve near it. Dr. Kumar explained my father’s condition, told us that we had a choice of two procedures in that condition – one involved administering an injection that does not come with guaranteed results. The other procedure was surgery, and this surgery was guaranteed to resolve the problem. When we opted for the surgery, he assured us that after this surgery, “the pain will go away immediately, only the numbness will remain for a while.”
Having met dr. Kumar for the first time in life, we were a little worried about going in for surgery; hence we consulted our family doctor, dr. Uday andar. He asked us not to go in for surgery as it might lock my father’s movements by 30-40% in all directions. When we spoke to dr. Abhaya kumar about this, he clarified our doubts and told us that the surgery to be performed was a different one, and it would not lock his movements. I asked him whether there were any after effects of the surgery or anything i had to keep an eye out for. He assured me once again that everything would be fine, that “the pain will go away immediately, only the numbness will remain for a while. There might be a little bit of pain near the neck region where the incision was made, but no pain in the area where the nerve was being compressed.”
The following day, the surgery took place early in the morning. Everything went smoothly. By the same evening, however, my father began to experience the exact same amount of pain he had before the surgery, around his arm and back again. This had us all worried and confused, as we had been told categorically that there wouldn’t be any pain anymore in that region. After over 25 minutes of no painkiller being given to him and no on call doctor coming to take a look at him, i finally contacted dr. Kumar to understand why this was happening. He informed me then that since the nerve had been compressed for 15 days and because it tends to get bruised during surgery, it would take time to recover; and this was the reason for the pain, so it was completely normal. Having never been told about this in any of my earlier discussions with him about the surgery, i asked him whether there was a reason he hadn’t mentioned it. I also asked him how long the pain would take to recover. Dr. Kumar called me back and began to yell at me for panicking. I politely told him that i wasn’t panicking; i was simply confused about why this hadn’t been mentioned before and i just wanted to understand better how long it normally takes to recover. He continued to yell at me asking me why i wouldn’t wait for my answers till he turned up the next day. I explained to him that since we weren’t expecting the pain, it had me confused and i couldn’t wait. I immediately apologized to him for causing him any inconvenience i might have. He continued to yell at me, telling me about how he has been working since morning on a public holiday, and ‘doctors also have a family life’. Being a reasonable human being, i empathized with him and apologized yet again. I followed this up with a message apologizing two times more for causing him any inconvenience, explaining that since he hadn’t mentioned anything about this pain, we weren’t expecting it and we couldn’t have waited till the next day for answers, and thanking him for having taken the time to explain it to me.
Dr. Abhaya kumar, however, was not to be satisfied with this. He walked into the general ward with an entourage of nurses and assistant doctors, and humiliated my father in front of everyone for a good 20 minutes or more. My father, an extremely peace-loving saintly creature, folded his hands and apologized repeatedly on my behalf, but that wouldn’t appease dr. Kumar either. He asked whether his daughter had any other ‘confusions’ to be cleared and was there anything else she wanted to ‘understand better’. He continued to yell at my father, taunted us about having consulted our family doctor and claimed to be a better surgeon than him. Despite all of this, when i calmly asked him how long the pain usually takes to recover, he retorted rather loudly with, “i am not god, i don’t have all the answers.”
I suspect a doctor, who arrogantly claims to be better than dr. Uday andar and boasts to us about the number of cases he has handled, would have the answer to how long such a pain usually takes to recover; having seen this occur in other cases as well. Moreover, every single time that we spoke about the surgery or i asked what to keep an eye out for, it would have been nice to get something as simple as, “in some cases, the nerve gets bruised or takes time to recover from having been compressed for such a long time. He might experience the same pain, and that is completely normal. It usually takes xxx hours to recover, but it might take longer, in which case there is nothing to worry about. We will take care of it.” now, there’s a possibility that maybe it didn’t strike dr. Kumar to mention it to me in all the stress he has been going through working on public holidays, such as the 15th of august when this surgery took place, considering he had to be in surat the day before that; and not being able to get an adequate amount of ‘family life’. This is perfectly understandable. Here’s what is not understandable – his arrogance at having to be accountable and answerable to the patient’s family at a very appropriate hour for something that he forgot to mention. Then going ahead and taking the liberty to humiliate my father, the man who was in pain and no at all concerned with any of this, just so that he can teach a lesson to the people who dared to bother him because his patient was in pain and nobody was attending to that patient.
Abhay means fearless. And dr. Abhaya kumar is indeed fearless. He fears no god or conscience. He fears no professional ethics that involve how much of a sacrilege it is to distress a patient, or how being answerable to his patient’s family, while the patient is still under his care, is an indispensable part of his job. Being a lesser mortal than him, however, i don’t enjoy the same fearless spirit that drives him. I do fear his ego, which is more fragile than my father’s nerve. This ego of his compelled my father and me to apologize to him repeatedly after he humiliated us, despite the fact that we weren’t actually wrong. When bruised, this ego of his could cause more pain to his patient and their families than my father’s bruised nerve caused him. Well, at least, dr. Kumar, who is not god and does not have all the answers, had more solutions handy for his bruised ego, than he did for my father’s bruised nerve; even if those solutions came at the cost of a patient and his family being publicly shamed, when they did not deserve it. At our last consultation with him, i was reminded of how much i worried about him and any other patients of his, who might face the same victimization, by his haughty approach towards us. Let me, however, tell you one thing – dr. Abhaya kumar is an outstanding spine surgeon. We met him to make sure my father has no pain in his spine anymore, and he made sure that the minute his own ego was hurt, my father went back home with a head hung rather low.
Thank you sincerely for your time,
Puja gokarn.
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