Problems faced by baby consultants ( 😁 ) at periphery

Problems faced by baby consultants ( 😁 ) at periphery

When brand new consultants are posted at peripheries as consultants then they face certain challenges at most DHQs and THQs.

I will describe them in 2 major category. Medical and surgical consultants.

Medical consultants :

When consultant of medicine is appointed, he is immediately a threat to senior medical officers who are working in that hospital and city as specialist. They usually gang up among themselves against the young consultant.
They start sending heavy patients load towards the consultant. These SMOs, APMOs usually do opds in morning so its very easy for them to redirect every patient towards the consultant. This makes it impossible for him to see patients with care and concentration. Imagine 200 to 300 patients per 6 hours. He will not be able to see patients with full skills. In the meanwhile these seniors start spreading words through lower staff that the consultant is rude and is not competent.
These seniors also keep eye on the biometric attendance of young consultant. They themselves report any irregularity to MS and they also even pay the lower staff to bully patients standing outside the consultant room in the name of consultant.
In simple words they overwhelmed the consultant with patient who should be seen by general physicians.

Surgical consultants :

The young surgeons used to the tertiary care setup. So transition for them is more complex.
One of the major issues they face is "post surgical infections". They think its their bad luck. Well its not most of the time . The senior gps working as surgeons in their hospitals usually are cause of these infections. Now you are wondering how that is possible... well they bribe OTAs for not sterilizing surgical instruments for the surgery, influence the wards nurses to skip the antibiotics doses etc.
A surgeon knows that their reputation is every thing to them. Few infected surgical outcomes and expiry of couple of patients is disastrous to their reputation.
Biometric attendance issue is same as for medical consultants.
In simple words senior GPs try to potray the new surgical consultant as incompetent killing machine.

Now don't panic. It dosent mean you cannot overcome these things. 1st try to b punctual. Try to gather consultants in unity.
Remember that consultants are in short supply in periphery. So they cant transfer you easily. Try to make SOPs for patient referal with MS directly. If consultants are united then its hard for MS to ignore the demands. Try not to indulge in complicated surgeries in hospital especially in the start. Try to supervise sterilization.Do detailed wards rounds. This has good effect on local population. In few months you will get a better grip on staff. For MLC referrals try to order as many investigations as u can before giving expert opinion.

I am not saying it happens at all centers. But be on your guard.