About 50 doctors of A'bad are connecting better with patients, making moolah and gaining knowledge from across the globe.
Doctors in the city are now making use of the online platform to not only connect better with their patients, but also earn a few extra bucks by answering their queries over the web.
Doctors are being paid by portals to answer queries, while users are being offered free and premium services to get answers from experts around the world. With such portals, patients can get the reference and advice of a number of specialists at one go.
About 50 doctors from the city are making use of this service to help their patients and connect with them. Such portals also provide peer review, which means the answer posted in reply to a query is reviewed by fellow doctors.
Dr Pragnesh Vachharajani, who makes use of such portals to answer patient queries, says that professionally, it helps the medical practitioner keep himself abreast of various things. “The patients, who post their queries, belong to different continents. An ailment that is common in India may not be common in Europe; so when you get queries from patients from across the world, as a doctor, you are required to read a lot and keep yourself updated,” he says.
Apart from monetary gains, he says, it is the constant interaction with fellow doctors from across the world that helps improve your knowledge. “When you see a query answered by a doctor from another country, it also makes you aware of new trends in medicine and treatment,” he says.
“For example, if I advice an online member to follow a certain course of action for a particular health issue, a peer review will not only validate my course of action, but also will provide an alternate course of action for the same aliment,” explains Dr Vachharajani. “Thus, it helps the medical professionals learn from each other.”
Dr Vachharajani has so far answered over 4,000 queries in various online portals. In fact, a group of family physicians in Ahmedabad have started a website to answer patients’ queries.
Dr C Mazumdar, founding member of such portal, Healthcare Magic, which helps bring together doctors and patients, says such services can be a win-win situation for both. “Not all medical conditions require you to run to a doctor, but it always helps to have an expert answer your queries. The doctors get paid to answer medical queries while the patients can get their doubts solved,” says Dr Mazumdar.
“It (online med portal) also helps patients connect with their doctors.” If a member from Ahmedabad gets his queries answered by a local doctor, then he can later visit the doctor in person. “As the doctor has already interacted at length with the patient online, he already knows about his condition and other necessary background information. This helps reduce the time a doctor takes with each patient (when they meet in person),” says Mazumdar.
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