This morning the clan went to see my hubby’s old doctor from NUH who moves to private practice. He is now has clinic at Camden Medical Center, smack in the middle of the busy Orchard Road and Orchard Boulevard. Its definitely a different environment from NUH. Now..don’t get me wrong. I like NUH, I loveeeeee NUH. It’s probably one of the places that I felt most comfortable in Singapore. Sounds creepy eh…comfortable in hospital. But NUH, although it is a university hospital – similar to what UI wants to build in Depok is definitely many steps above any hospital in Indonesia. Maybe UPH or Siloam in Karawaci will look like NUH..maybe not, considering there is still lots of Indonesian going to Singapore for medical purposes.
By the way….I wanted to share with you my amazement on tech savvy doctors/clinic. At Camden, the waiting area resembles a 5 star hotel lobby. With big sofas, coffee table and hi class magazines scattered around the lounge. We are sooooo worried that the consultation will cost a fortune. But we let that worry aside first.
Then, the nurse showed us to a waiting lounge and takes my hubby’s blood pressure and body temp. They use only one device for both tasks – all computerized.
After that they showed us to dr. M’s consultation room. And we were in total awe…….. The room didn’t look at all like a doctor’s consultation office. It has 3 chairs with one coffee table, one leather single seater couch, a leather bench, a desk drawer and one leather single bed for examination. This is awesome…….. I have to tell you, it didn’t stop here.
The nurse that showed us to the room, give hubby some paper to fill in and a wi-fi tablet PC. She told hubby to take answer questions in the tablet PC. We go through all the questions one by one, and at the end, there is a movie-player type information on cancer for National Cancer Support. And hubby is automatically registered in the support group in which he can browse the content at his leisure.
When dr. M came, he bring a print out document………..it consist of all the answers of questions that hubby answered. So, prior to consultation, dr. M already know my hubby’s status — whether he experience pain, headache, fatigue…etc..etc…we didn’t event know that it is linked directly to the system. W.O.W! I compare that with our system in Indonesia, in which hubby should fill in a form listed 50 questions on his condition – in which the doctors seldom use as the base of consultation, its probably just formalities………………………………docs in Indonesia might also not familiar in getting information from the net, which makes the patients often more knowledgeable than the docs. But hey…they still think that they know better than us……
And I need to tell you that our worry that the consultation will cost us a fortune is proven wrong. The cost? Same with consultation with doctors in NUH or SGH, SGD 85 for first consultation and SGD 55 for follow up consultation. Hah! Who said that in order to have a good service, we have to pay more?
I often wonder why would Indonesian goes to Singapore to see their doctor and have their condition checked. Are all our doctors less smart than Singapore doctors? Definitely not. Our doctors have the same, or some maybe above, the expertise of Singapore doctors. But there are two things that doctors in Indonesia are mostly lacking: compassion and tech savviness.
Compassion is something that is very rare in Indonesia. Most foreign educated doctors in Indonesia probably have that. They may also have been equipped with the communication skills to talk to their patients compassionately. Home grown doctors are mostly still lacking in this area. I second the regulation for all doctors to be required to enroll in communications skills program. In fact they should not be entitlde for their practicing license if they did not pass the communications skill tests….now..I would really want to have that enforced.
The second one is something that I don’t think can happen in the near future. Tech savviness is something that not only doctors are lacking, government people and public servants are also lacking. Technology should be utilized to ease and cut red-tape. It’s not likely to be happening in Indonesia soon I think. Now lets talk about doctor’s tech savviness among doctors in Singapore. My hubby’s doctor carries Apple iBook G4. During consultation he quoted research studies and medicinal development from his iBook, and browse the net to show the latest information available. When he is still practicing in NUH, all my hubby’s medical records and tests are only a click away. He can pull all the medical records in seconds, print it out and gave it to us. If we have something to show him, we can save it in our flashdisk and he expertly plug it in and open. Hah! I wish hospitals in Indonesia is online like this, so we don’t have to wait for the blood test result to be printed in paper and bring it to our doc, as our doc should already have them in their computers in their consultation room.
SGH doctors – remember this being the equivalent of RSCM – also have the same technology. Everything is online. And everything is only a click away. Drug prescription: just put an entry in the computer, and click send – it will go directly to the cashier and the pharmacy. We just wait for our name to be called and pay, then go to the pharmacy to pick up our medicine. What a wonderful system.
I did my medical check up in NUH last August. Again..here everything is online. I was worried that I will have to carry big X-Ray films, USG scans etc. I am so relieved that all of that is being saved in a CD. Now, my next question will be: how am I going to show the result to my doctor in Indonesia, who doesn’t have a computer in his room, and probably clueless on how to open the file (well..that one is my exaggeration..hehehehe).
Well…nuff said. I’m in total awe and so amazed of how technology is used to its maximum potential in hospitals and by doctors in Singapore.
PS: my late father was a doctor, and he taught at UI and he was very much passionate about technology. Had he still around today, I can imagine his room will be filled with the latest gadgets. So, I don’t have any grudge against Indonesian doctors. I just wish they go out of their shells and sniff the smell of technology brewing all over the world.
In My Humble Opinion 
