Thoughts on the relationship of patient - physician

Physician's consultations with an Ayurvedic physician are often totally different from one with a Western physician. Going to an Ayurveda-physician in Sri Lanka a consultation goes as followed: for greetings both smile politely and the patient sits down. The door often stays open (also involuntary), so that everybody can listen in. Then the physician begins with the (pulse) diagnosis and asks at the most for the patient's name in order to write a prescription. This consist mainly of a list of herbs, roots and leaves, which the patient acquires himself. Then he will be given the information of how everything should be prepared (e.g. cook everything for 45 min. and drink the warm decoction). After that one says their goodbyes with a smile. Practically nothing was said but nevertheless everyone is pleased.

The cause for this, "silent communication", lies in the fact that the construction of diagnose is conducted differently to a Western physician. An "average" Ayurveda-physician knows up to ten different ways to diagnose (pulse / iris / nails / skin / tongue / entire body / etc.). He therefore diagnoses and "sees" his patients totally different as a Western physician does, who often "only" through questions and the given answers comes to a result. He receives details through test results or from specialist physicians. Hence, Ayurveda-physicians often ask totally different, "peculiar" questions. They for example want to know in detail about your digestion (stool and urine) and sometimes even ask this question several times a day. Or they ask you down to the smallest detail about your family relations, whereas some of these questions can seem embarrassing to a "Westerner" (especially if someone is listening in!)

This entirely different way of diagnosing by an Ayurveda-physician sometimes leads to results which can be rather surprising for a Western person. For example: when a Western-physician, after some tests and consultations with colleagues comes to the conclusion that something is not right with the liver, an Ayurveda-physician may comes to the same conclusion much quicker, due to the fact that he uses the iris- and nail-diagnosis. Nevertheless our head physician lays great importance on the fact that neither she nor other Ayurveda-physicians should be seen as "miracle healer" or even "Handaufleger", when they were able to make a good diagnosis remarkably quick.

Finally a concluding thought: no patient should play a "game" with his physician (neither in Sri Lanka nor anywhere else), in which he wants to "test" him to see if he can recognise the illness by himself or if he has to be helped. Furthermore it is not sensible to fight a fight of who can give the best diagnosis. Here it is also true that teamwork leads to the greatest success.