One of the several characteristics that are going towards a decline in Hyderabad city is the trend of family doctors, as a result the patient is directly approaching specialists. Whether the trend is healthier or not is a different question, but lakhs of rupees are shelled out by the patients in this process. Today the Hakeems and doctors who used to diagnose the disease just by looking at the face or holding pulse of the patients are no more. Those were the days when doctors were not commercialized. They would collect fee from the patients according to their financial condition. They even used to give free prescription and medicines to poor patients.
Due to such generous attitude of family doctors they had become part of the family. They used to share happy and sad moments of the family. Now everything has changed rather degenerated. Mall culture has penetrated into hospitals and dispensaries. Patients have been left to the mercy of machines rather than doctors.
Sadly family medicine has not even been included in MD course. The reason according to general practitioners is that family medicine in MD course has no charm from income point of view. Students spend lakhs of rupees for studying medicine and family medicine will not pay them back the amount they spent on studies. High-tech specialists are raking in the dough even as family doctors barely keep up with inflation.