WANT TO BE A GOOD DOCTOR?

DEVELOP THESE ESSENTIAL SKILLS-

1. EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS- for a doctor, having a good communication skill is essential. You must be able to listen to whole long story of patient who is telling you his complaints during your interaction with him/her. After hearing all that story, you have to make sense of it, for you to diagnose his medical condition, then you still must talk with him in a soft gentle tone & language. And, after all things are sorted out about him, as a doctor you have to tell him his illness, it’s causes, it’s necessary investigations, it’s treatment options and it's timeline about getting cured or not. Converting complex medical terms & diseases in a simplified understandable terms is an essential skill for a doctor. You will be a favorite doctor to all patients permanently, if you talk more than patient during your visit time with patient. Patients always want to listen to his doctor/his advice/his feeling about patient's illness/his insight about patient as a whole. No person will get these things in Google search of medical conditions. So, a great communication skill is a "MUST SKILL" to become a good doctor. How do you develop that? Read books on it, practice it, take a course on it, whatever it takes to develop it, do it.

2. LIFELONG LEARNING: Medical field is changing every day. Every week you get a new study or update about a new drug or a new update in treatment guidelines. Imagine, your patient asks you about a new drug or treatment option and you are absolutely unaware of it. How you will answer your patient? Imagine, you treat a patient with a drug and he is better but still not cured fully and he goes to your colleague and gets cured with latest new treatment, then you will be seen as "to old style practicing doctor" who is just practicing on his old knowledge. So, bottom line is keep reading, keep updating yourself about latest knowledge and research. How do you do it? Get subscription of top journal/website which provides these things. Attend national/international conferences of your specialty and keep updating.

3. ONLINE PRESENCE AND SERVICE- In today's era of digital world, it’s impossible that your skills and expertise will be known to lot of patients without your digital presence. People are so busy that they don't want to waste their time in your waiting room. They want online consultation/online opinions/online prescriptions. Develop your online customers via your websites/online lectures/blogs. Give free lectures online about your specialty, give free advice for your patients for second or third visit as a complimentary benefit & so on...There are infinite ways to develop your digital presence. And you will also know, through your feedback form & through your digital platform what your patients want or what general public wants from a doctor.

4. GIVE TIME TO PATIENTS- Today's most valuable & scarce thing is TIME. Everyone is busy. You are busy, your patient is busy. So give adequate time to your patient. Most of the patients' complain that their doctor is very busy and gives very little time to them. That’s the main reason why patients change their doctors. Off course, you need to give results, no doubt, but “giving time to patients’ is the very niche segment in doctors’ profession. This "giving time" is going to be very important in today’s era. So, give time to patient. Listen to him. Other than his illness related complaints, listen to his complaints about his lifestyle, his concerns. You may find cause & remedy to his illness in his faulty lifestyle.