Improving The Patient Engagement

Ajith Kozhikote: It is extremely essential for the physicians and the health institutions to inform their patients and educate them. This would increase their knowledge, improve their health outcome and will allow them to play an active role in their health care. Today, most of the health institutions are looking for various ways to improve the patient engagement.

Some of these are as follows:

Encourage the patients to communicate: Doctors have a packed schedule, and their busy appointments increase the gap between them and their patients. It has been seen that the patients often stay silent on their meeting with the doctors, but that's not how it should work. They must take an initiative to know more about their illness and their treatment from their doctor. They either feel embarrassed or shy away with asking questions. Most of the times, it is always the physicians initiative to start a conversation with the patient, and educate them about their treatment.

Educate the patients: Sharing knowledge about the medical conditions can really empower the patients to take good actions in their health treatment. The physicians try to interact with the patients, and educate them about their health and illness. This way they are keeping their patients informed, and are urging them to look more information and raise questions to clear their doubts.

Never Neglect the Patient's Family: The involvement of the family is as important as that of the patient. If the patient cannot speak because of his serious medical condition, then the physicians and the hospital staff communicate with their families, and educate them about the whole process of treatment. Be it the discharge process or the recovery stage, just interact with them.

Friendly Follow Ups: The discharged patients must connect with their doctors for a timely prescription. On the other end, a follow up call from the from the hospital staff after the discharge is really helpful in knowing the post treatment medical condition of the patient.

Learning From The Fellow Physicians

How can your colleagues inspire you? They can either push you to work more diligently or completely neglect your duties and take things lightly. I have struggled hard to get in here, the world of medicine has always fascinated me. I would say that medicine has always been my choice, it was my passion and I am lucky to choose it as my profession. I feel obliged to meet new people every day. My staff, colleagues, patients, seniors play an important role in my life.

I spend most of my time with the patients, and same is the situation with my fellow physician friends who hardly get time to chat over a coffee, especially in the hospital. Treating our patients and giving them a safe life is our responsibility. It is our prime duty to keep our patients first and dedicate our lives to them. In this hectic schedule, I hardly get time to talk to my physician friends, but we somehow manage to share a few seconds with each other. Trust me, in the field of medicine, it is such an honor to work with the most talented and hard working people in the industry.

A meeting of few minutes with my mates has a long lasting effect. In our packed schedules and busy lives, those few minutes of relief are really inspiring for me. All this time, I thought I was really passionate about my work and profession, but these quick meetings with my fellow physicians have suddenly raised a question on that thinking. Over the crisp meetings, I have always found my colleagues discussing about their patients and the cases. Their commitment towards their job is really empowering to the people like me and to all those aspirants who are contemplating on becoming a physician one day.

Our life takes a 360 degree turn, our responsibilities are hard, but after the grueling day, you cannot leave your patients alone. They need you all the time, and learning this from my seniors, I can say that today I am a different man. Thank you to all my colleagues and mates for this incredible transformation.

Maintaining The Doctor And Patient Relationship: Ajith Kozhikote

“I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn't want all the pills I've recommended that's up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife. ” - Javier Pérez De Cuéllar

Don't impress your doctor by telling a lie about your medical condition. The strong foundation of doctor and patient relationship is trust and honesty. I have heard so many cases in which patients give false information to their doctors to avoid a harsh conversation. I remember, on asking my patient about her exercising schedule, she quipped, “I am a yoga enthusiast, and I go for a walk every evening. But, further in the counseling session, she was caught manipulating that her busy schedule keeps her away from the physical activities. On catching her lie, the smooth conversation took a serious turn, and I explained her the consequences of taking her health so easy.

A long lasting relationship between the doctor and patient needs support from both the ends. You have to be a trustworthy patient, and your doctor should respect your honesty. If a patient is uncomfortable with his doctor, then it is the responsibility of the practitioner to make him feel easy, and create a light atmosphere for a proper conversation. This interaction plays an important role in the process of treatment. Less or no information can put you in danger. The doctor must know everything about your previous and present medical condition to proceed further. So, to avoid any misdiagnoses and improper treatment, you have to be honest with him.

Physicians on the other hand do have a responsibility towards their patients. They are often seen in a rush while attending the patients. Is that a true practice? In order to earn more money, the physicians take more appointments in a day. This packed schedule is responsible for a lack of proper interaction between the patient and the doctor. Practitioners must know that exchanging a few words with their patients can make a lot of difference.

Through this post, I would like to address the need for more transparency in this relationship which will benefit both the parties.

Organ Donation, A Life Saving Experience: Ajith Kozhikote

Have you seen ordinary people doing extraordinary deeds? I have, and today through this post I would like to share with you all some heart melting stories, which will definitely make you believe that angels do exist.

Life is uncertain, you have no idea what is written in your destiny. This statement goes well with the real life story of Shashi Palekar, a housewife, and a child of two from Delhi. The middle class family from Pritampura was spending a great time in the packed Delhi life. Busy working hours of Shashi's husband in a multinational firm were giving good returns. Kids went to a good school and Shashi spent most of her time taking care of the household stuff. In her free time, she loved taking a walk on the ground, a few yards away from their house. The daily walk with her friends was a stress buster. They used to chat, enjoy street food, do household shopping, and gossip.

Life was going smoothly, until things took a u turn, and turned the world upside down. Shashi went for an evening walk, but that day something happened which shattered the happiness of the small and beautiful family. Sashi got hit by a car on her way to the ground, and fell unconscious. It took a few minutes for her friends to know about the tragedy, and they all rushed to the spot to help their friend. One of her friend's son took her to the hospital, where the doctors rushed her to the ICU.

The head injuries were so fatal that the doctors declared her brain dead. Shashi's husband was broken, that moment froze everything. The dreams, the future, the kids, everything disappeared in the darkness, and then the transplant co-coordinators of the hospital approached the disappointed husband, and suggested about the organ donation. The family took no time in deciding, and agreed to the suggestion. Shashi saved the life of five people by donating heart, liver, eyes and kidneys. The family misses her, and she will always live in their thoughts.

Ajith Kozhikote: A Day Well Spent With The Little Dynamites

It was really a pleasant evening, when I met the powerhouse of energy, and the tiny, little rockstars of my hospital over this weekend. I keep really busy because of my hectic schedule and huge responsibilities. At this packed time, I have to take care of my patients, scrutinize their health, analyze their recovery graph. Sometimes, this is not enough for your patients, you need to give a bit more to nurture this beautiful relationship.

My hospital staff is really supportive, I am obliged to have such heart warming people around me, who keep the lives of others before their own priorities. My hospital staff observed the children's wards really minutely, the chirpy kids were silent, the air of grief and sorrow touched our souls, and we decided to make an evening special for these tinker bells.

This weekend the whole staff accompanied me to the hospital, and we dedicated an evening to these kids. The back to bachpan memories were relived with these children, and believe me the day could have not been better. Every day, we become the puppets of responsibilities and duties, and forget to do our real deeds. It is to fill someone's life with happiness, and bring some joy on their disappointed faces, but do we really do that. Yes, we do that, but somewhere we need to express it to the people around us that we really care for you.

This evening we expressed our feelings to these kids, that they are really the life of our hospital. We did not want them to lose hope, or feel they were not the special ones, because they were not playing like other children with their friends or they were not going to the school. We brought the life back to that ward by playing games, reciting poems, relishing the candies, and most importantly sharing those loving moments with them. The noise from the children's ward on Monday morning confirmed the success of the plan. Kudos to the team behind the scenes.

Balancing it well, Physician and Social worker: Ajith Kozhikote

Saving someone's life is a huge responsibility. When we think of relying on one person after God to save our lives, and grant us a healthy living, it's a Doctor or a Physician. We have seen the physicians working day and night for the people they have never known. It's their job to protect their patients, and to devote their time to them. Apart from dedicating themselves to their duties, they are working on another track as a social worker.

How can we say that physicians are nonetheless the social workers who are selflessly working hard towards the great cause of humanity. Apart from their duty, they take care of various things that can boost the morale of the patient, and gives a strong support to the family of the ailing person. When someone is fighting with a deadly disease, it's extremely important to extend a support that can give him strength in winning the life threatening battle.

AjithKozhikote is a kind soul who is balancing these tasks brilliantly. He is the one who schedules the follow up appointments of his patients, maintaining close relationship with the patients and their families, educating the people about the diseases, conducting free workshops for the illiterates, spreading awareness through seminars, and much more. These works of the acclaimed physician from Maharashtra evidences the existence of some great people in this universe.

In his shining career, he has extended a monetary help to so many patients, who were not in the position to afford expensive treatments. The patients who were poor, or whose financial condition did not permit them to undertake treatments that were high in cost were given a concession, or Ajith gave a free treatment to them. Not only this, but he has been taking care of so many patients who have undergone a treatment under his observance free of cost. He is in regular touch with the families of these patients, and to make things easy for them, he organizes a few workshops, where all these people come and get a free medical check up.

Ajith Kozhikote is well taught to be a professional physician and a true social worker. We salute people like him who are working incredibly for the people.

Soft Corner For Movies: Ajith Kozhikote

I am a hardcore professional, and when I am a physician at Maharashtra's hospital, I am deeply involved in treating my patients. The sleepless nights to become a physician have also helped me in discovering my love for movies. All those days of hard work, when I was not willing to peep in the medical books, I gazed at the TV screen whole night. My love for Hindi cinema has developed since then, I could watch back to back movies on my television when not studying. Those were the golden times when I followed the Raj Kapoor era very intimately.

The beautiful themes, incredible actors, and the gorgeous ladies of Hindi cinema have always given me a reason to stick with my passion, even after such a busy schedule. Raj Kapoor, a legendary actor, director had such a charm and his excellent acting abilities have driven me crazy. I remember the term exams which would decide our fate in the medical career. When all my mates glued their eyeballs in the bible of physicians, I was doing justice towards my passion for movies. Though I managed to clear the terms with a not so satisfying performance, but I thoroughly enjoyed every movie of the veteran actors.

I confess my soft corner for the gorgeous actress, Madhubala. The talented actor is the strongest reason for my love for old movies. The melodious music and the meaningful dialogues were responsible for the success of that iconic era. By now I have watched hundreds of Bollywood movies, and have seen most of them on repeat. The magic of those films is such that I can watch them over and over again for years. These are those priceless treasures which will always stay close to my heart.

Movies have been and would always be my first love. Years passed by, the faces have changed and the fresh people have taken over the industry with a unique thinking and creativity. I respect their contribution in entertaining the masses with their extraordinary work.

Ajith Kozhikote