A couple of years ago, a US based top Indian doctor, in collaboration with World health Organisation, published a book called "Checklist". The book became instantly hit, a New York Times best seller.
The point in the book was :
Large number of heart attack patients all over world are dying not because of heart attacks, but they are dying because when they are brought to hospital, the doctors do not follow any standardised or pre-decided procedure.
The book said all human beings are prone to errors. But the best protection against errors of human mind is CHECKLISTS.
As per book, the professionals all over world, need to be taught certain standard checklists to be followed while doing their work. When you are completing a predetermined checklist in your mind or on paper, certain cognitive process goes in brain which guards against human errors of mind.
After reading this book, I read all other books of this author also. What he was saying was making sense to me.
And then I saw this type of method methodically used by a dentist, Dr. Aseem Gupta in Delhi, when I met him about five years ago.
I noticed two methods in him which impressed me.
1) Every step in treatment which he was doing, during treatment, he had a pre-decided protocol and time. It looked as if in his mind, he was checking off some kind of checklist, during the procedures of treatment.
At first I thought that all dentists must have been trained in their colleges to follow such methods.
But when I met other dentists, I felt that all dentists were not taught such protocols. I did not saw any other dentist following some kind of checklist in his mind while doing treatment.
I think in every profession, be it Medical or a Legal, the apex regulatory bodies must prepare and publish some kind of checklists for use of professionals.
Now, since some years, checklists method has been introduced in Supreme Court of India. We are required to feel up a fix checklist before filing a case. But after introducing this method few years ago, Supreme Court has become lax. This check list has become outdated and no one is interested in making it up to date or revising it. It has become obsolete.
The CHECKLISTS, wherever used, has power of creating a cognitive defence system which guards professionals against human errors.
And the truth is, though knowing this, I am also not following any kind of checklist while doing my professional work.
2) Another thing I learned from this Dentist was, whenever I went to his clinic at appointed time, his clinic looked empty. No crowd of patients.
When I inquired about this, he gave answer that when he is treating any patient, he would like to give his total attention to that patient only and to nothing else. So when he gives an appointment, he makes sure not to give same or overlapping time to any other patient. If no other patient is waiting in waiting room of his clinic, then he would be more comfortable and he could pay better attention to the patient whom he may be treating.
I found that his both above methods, need to be considered by all professionals in India.
In fact, I think that these methods can also help all other people in their life apart from professionals.
Haresh Raichura
7/12/13
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