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My Market Value
India has a rapidly expanding healthcare industry with private hospitals proliferating in every big city. The health industry is expected to reach nearly $200 billion by 2020. This article talks about the author's experience of working within this "industry" which places "market value" as the most important quality a doctor may have, irrespective of qualifications or experience. Doctors often face challenges to balance this harsh "market-driven" environment with the best interests of their patients.
“You are a product just like this Coke bottle, which needs to be marketed and sold. Though you have good credentials, you don’t have any market value, and this hospital needs only consultants with a decent market value,” explained the smartly dressed senior human resources (HR) executive with a practised nonchalance, sipping from the cola bottle. Having recently returned from England, with a training and clinical experience valued in most parts of the world, I was confident that my credentials would help me easily join a corporate hospital of my choice in Delhi. Listening to the HR executive sitting in that swanky basement office of a prominent Delhi hospital was surreal. It was a rather shocking revelation, which brought my enthusiasm on returning home crashing down. As a doctor I have had my share of appreciation, adulation and failure, but 12 years after my MBBS, during which I had collected two postgraduate degrees and a unique clinical experience in Acute Medicine and Endocrine, I never imagined that I would end up being compared to a Coke bottle.
‘Global Standards’ in Healthcare
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