Good Doctor or Caring Doctor?

dr. Sarah Akbari
May 9, 2025
3 min read

Would you go to a doctor that is so good they can aleaviate your symptoms again and again within minutes with their script, or would you go to a doctor that is standing side by side with you no matter how long it takes, to make sure as much as possible, the symptoms never come again?

If life is that fair, we would not need to choose… But unfortunately we still do..

As a patient, and a patient’s family, I’d choose a caring doctor, because I understand everyone is different and whatever drive up the symptoms is different. There is no one pill that affect the same to everyone - be it a drug, a supplement, or even food…

That medical centre on the picture is undoubtedly a medical centre of choice of many, including our family. This is a place where joy, hope, sadness, disappointments and trauma become part of my life (but as Kelly Clarkson say, what does not kill you makes you stronger, or what Scientists say, hormesis stress:-)). For me, personally and professionally, I have been having a long standing relationship with the institution, close to over 30 years… In that 30 over years, I have encountered both, good and caring doctors… and experience make me chose caring ones than good ones. Experience shaped me to be (I hope) caring one. The one who listens, the one who is honest, the one who pushes the patient to be their best, the one holds your hand when bad thing happened…

I have experienced a doctor there who honestly said to me that MRI would be good to confirm my diagnosis but would not change his course of treatment for me so advise me to not have one to save money - this kind of doctor

My obgyn in that hospital made sure that I did not gain more than 10kg on each of my three pregnancies by checking what I ate and what I did - I gained 8kg with 3kg baby which made me (and my OB) very happy - this kind of doctor. When he retired, he called out his patients to collect our medical records so that we can pass it to the next doctor that we chose. May God continue blesses him.

I also had cases where I had to decline a medical claim because a doctor over diagnose a simple respiratory infection - which of course, only benefit the doctor - not this kind of doctor.

When my mom with her terminally illness was hospitalised there, she also left her good doctor to a caring doctor that turned out was equally good than the evil one:-), and despite her illness, then had a better quality of mind thus also life. When she was hospitalised, we had good doctor that kept coming for visit everyday, telling us - her children - that there was no hope, and advised us to give up - that is his message every bloody day - and charged us $350 plus GST for that 3 mins visit to tell us our Mom would never wake up again. But, we also had a caring doctor, who stopped coming to visit, and told us that there is nothing else he can do. This caring one came FIRST when she passed away, and helped me clean my mom and consoled me… THIS IS WHAT A PATIENT NEED… He inspired me to be like him.

So I guess what I am trying to say here, you can go to the best facilities, but until you found decent caring doctor, you would never be in a good hand… Death ofcourse is inevitable, a caring doctor, when it is your time to go, will give you a dignified death...

May my mother rest in peace, may we doctors care more to our patients♥️