How useful is online medical service (OTX) in urology?
Let’s explain this for our viewers and our patients. OTX means online medical service. And, in fact, it’s a very good idea — something that is really needed.
But let me give my own personal opinion. When patients contact me this way, very often — given my work in Germany and my practice there — I simply don’t have enough opportunity or time to be able to answer the questions of so many patients. Time constraints are often considerable.
In that case my suggestion would be, for example, that in this format patients ask quick-fire questions and get quick-fire answers, so that we can point patients in the right direction. Otherwise a patient will ask one question, and then another question after it.
And after that another question will come up. Each answer will lead to yet another question. In such cases, how much time does a doctor — a professional doctor — have? And here again we come back to professionalism.
Professional shortcomings can arise here. Why? Because there may be a gap at some point, or in some examination method, and we may fail to point the patient in the right direction.
That’s why this is a sensitive question. In such cases, contact between the doctor and the patient is very important. Questions can be asked and the patient given direction, but after that the patient must see a doctor.
My introduction to OTX, that is, online medical service, was not a coincidence. And even if it had been, as they say, coincidences are never just coincidences. I met Mr. Safar and became acquainted with his project.
It’s a wonderful idea. It’s a wonderful project. And the point here isn’t its advantage as a company or as a project.
It is a project that is a great help to our patients, our people, in gaining something positive. I strongly support it, and we would very much like to help with its development — or, if we see some shortcoming, to help with that too.
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