Medical Professionals Health Conscious Yet the Most Neglected

Abstract

Medical profession undoubtedly demands high level of devotion, time, and energy. Dealing with situations where human lives are at stake involves persistent work pressure and stress. The long working hours and sedentary job profile affects the overall health of the doctors. The stress, prolonged sitting hours, limited physical activity elevates the possibility of doctors suffering various health problems A 10-year-long study conducted by the Indian Medical Association for Kerala interviewed 10,000 doctors. During the study, 282 doctors died, 87% of them were male physicians and 13% females. When the reason for death was investigated, 27% had died due to heart diseases, 25% due to cancer, 2% by infection, and 1% by committing suicide.

Material: Doctors attending an educational conclave were requested to undergo certain blood investigations and general examination. Hundred medical professionals agreed to undergo general physical examination and blood investigations. We collected demographic profiles such as age, sex, height, weight and inquired whether he/she is having existing diabetes mellitus or hypertension or not. Five ml of blood sample was drawn and was sent to evaluate haemoglobin, serum creatinine, serum urea, SGOT, SGPT, serum triglyceride, LDL, HDL, TSH & HbA1c levels. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated. For the sake of statistical analysis two age groups were made, doctors less than 50 years age and doctors with more than 50 years of age were compared for various health profiles. Doctors with HbA1c levels less than 6 were compared with levels more than 6. Doctors with haemoglobin level less than 10 were compared with levels of more than 10. Similarly doctors with BMI less than 25 were compared with BMI more than 25.

Observation: Total 100 doctors participated in the study. The result shows that out of the total sample 78 were male and 22 were females with mean age of 53.41 years. The youngest of the sample was 25 year old and the eldest was 82 years old hence the standard deviation of age is 11.7 years. The height and weight of doctors is significantly different between male (169 cms ± 6.4 cms) and female (155.89 cms ± 7 cms) with p<0.0001. It was also analyzed that BMIs of the doctors are not significantly different. However, weight is significantly different between the doctors having BMI less than 25 and more than 25.

Conclusion: In recent decades, affluent populations have become increasingly sedentary, with many adults spending 70% or more of their waking hours sitting and doctors are no different as their work demand lot of sitting hour. Overall, there is a need for continued promotion of doctors' health. We see that the value of the blood sample, height and weight of the doctors show a range of variation. There are many doctors who are overweight and obese. The HbA1C value shows that many of them are DM and some are on the border line. Other values are also alarming and it shows that the doctors need to take proper care of them in term of proper nutrition, physical activity. The study shows that if they continue to be ignorant towards their health, they may develop non- communicable disease.