When a mob approaches you with intent to harm, time slows down a bit. Their movements sluggish, their shouts unnaturally drawn out and my body unwilling to act upon the single insistent command I gave it - "RUN!"
Instead I found myself staring blankly at the tidal wave of limbs and rage, eventually reaching a place of completely ineffectual calm in the face of my apocalypse.
The next moment is a blur as if time had sped up with a vengeance to punish me for me beliting it's onward rush. I was no longer in the corridor, I was in the ICU.
The hiss and beeps of ventilators filled the air as I tried to process what had happened. A guard stood next to me baring the door way panting a little. "Why the fuck did you come out?!" Through the glass window I could see the press of bodies outside being held back by a double line of men in khaki uniforms. The noises they made muffled by the walls and the doors
"WHERE IS HE?! WHY ARE YOU HIDDING HIM?!... WEREN'T GONNA HURT HIM....TALK TO HIM."
I was shunted by this man from the corridor into the nearest defensible position. I should have been feeling gratitude and 'faith in humanity restored' waala feels but I was mostly numb. Part of me was surprised that the guards had saved my ass. The larger part of me was an empty echo chamber.
In about five minutes the guards were joined by reinforcements who helped them drive most of the mob away. As their angry chants faded away the realisation of what happened struck me with full force and I shook in delayed fear.
That was my first brush with danger. I doubt it's gonna be my last.
In a domestic study it was found that 3/4 doctors have been verbally or physically assaulted at some point in their professional lives. Most of these happened in emergency and critical care scenarios. Most of them (60%) are perpetrated by the patients kith and kin.
I see it as an unavoidable part of patient care. The settings in which we are involved, emotions are bound to run high over perceived negligence or apathy.
I believe that most doctors see it this way, which is why most of these incidents are not reported.
But it is still an unnerving thing to go through. Any patient interaction from then on is coloured with suspicion and a personal tendency to abdicate responsibility.
No amount of legislation is gonna save our hides unless it's an incredibly unfair one (capital punishment for assaulting a doctor maybe?), and let's face it, the public doesn't see us as a victim demographic and therefore is unlikely to want to protect us. (As my senior once remarked in Kannada - "When the people of the world decide to kick your ass, not even God can save it!")
I guess we have enough justification to get a gun license at this point (In India gun license are provided on a 'need' basis ie: reasonable cause for need of protection, shooting encroaching animals etc)
The point I am trying to make is that the current situation is one of a great divide
between the doctor and the patient with each side looking at the other as the cause of their problems something compounded by the fact that there is truth to each of our sides.
My advise to my fraternity? Keep the patients family in the loop at all times, it is your duty and their right. If they feel that the risks are too great? Walk the fuck away. It is no longer your responsibility or your problem.
If you see a crowd forming agreeing with the family's side? Run!
