That is usually how the story begins of a newspaper headline, of a viral tweet and of a Reddit thread filled with outrage. A shaky phone recording from a hospital corridor that captures a raised voice and nothing that led to it. The patient speaks. The doctor yells. The clip ends. Judgment begins.
We hear one side fluently. The other side rarely makes it to the screen.
In public imagination, the doctor is powerful, well paid. When something goes wrong, the blame lands neatly on the white coat. What we rarely ask is what happened before that moment. How long shift had been. How many patients were waiting. What the doctor had just walked out of.
For this blog, I spoke to three doctors whose names have been changed to protect their privacy. What they shared is rarely spoken about in public. Long hours. Broken systems. Quiet fear. A public image that does not match private reality.
This is not about taking sides. It is about looking at the full picture.
If we are willing to listen to stories of medical failure, we should also be willing to listen to stories of what doctors endure to keep showing up. If you can sit with that, then read this blog till the end.
Table of Contents
Why Do Doctors Appear Rude?
We often say being a doctor is the most respected profession in the society. A person who saves lives is placed next to God. But even gods, in the stories we grow up with, gave up their personal lives to serve others. If we place doctors on that pedestal, it is worth asking what that expectation costs them every day. Following are the challenges they face everyday:
The Making of a Doctor: Becoming a doctor in India long before medical college. For many, it begins with their parental expectation and pressure. In 2025, nearly 22 lakh students appeared for the NEET-UG entrance examination. Around 12.36 lakh qualified. Many of them had already attempted the exam more than once. The competition is brutal, and investment begins early. Once, reddit users says “First three years of MBBS are relatively bearable. The hectic life begins during internship.” Every doctor I spoke to agreed with that sentiment. Internship is where theory ends and reality begins.
The Hours That Do Not End: The National Medical Commission’s Post Graduate Medical Education Regulation chapter V 5.2 states that “All post-graduate students will work as full-time resident doctors. They will work for reasonable working hours and will be provided reasonable time for rest in a day”. The word reasonable is doing a lot of work there. In April 2025, a petition filed in the supreme court claimed that resident doctors routinely work between 70-100 hours a week, often without any adequate rest. None of the doctors I interviewed were surprised by that number. One of them recalled her PG days. Their HOD instructed residents to come to work on Sundays but not punch attendance. “You will not punch, but you will work,” she was told. Why agree? “We don’t have a choice,” she said. “Our thesis, internal marks, assignments, everything lies in the hands of our professors. Protesting means risking the career we have spent our entire youth building.” Another doctor, Najeshwari, compared her life to her friends outside medicine. “They have fixed schedules. Once they log out, nobody calls them. We don’t have that. Even after duty hours, we are on call.” A patient sees one doctor. A doctor may see more than 100 patients in a few hours. The math leaves little room for patience.
The People in the Room: Interestingly, None of the three doctor said the patients are rude. What they spoke about were attendants. During her internship, Najeshwari remembers checking a patient when an attendant told her, “You are paid from our tax money. You are our servant.” In government hospitals, this is not rare. Another doctor shared an experience from a female colleague working night shifts in a government setup. Drunk patients would arrive after midnight and some misbehave, some flirted, and some asks for phone numbers. In a few cases, female doctors were chased up to hostel premises. There were no security and no counsellor to speak to. No formal system of emotional support. The next morning, they reported back to duty. The expectation from patients is simple. Give us time. Explain everything. Be calm. Be kind .The reality is also simple. One doctor. A corridor full of waiting faces and an exhausted mind.
No Guarantee of Safety: All three doctors pointed to the same setting. Government hospitals. Security is limited. During night shifts, especially, doctors often feel they are on their own. One of them put it bluntly. “If we don’t assert authority from the beginning, things can spiral. If you appear too soft, someone will test your boundaries.” Male doctors face hostility. Female doctors face hostility and something more. Harassment becomes an added layer of risk. And yet, the shift continues.
Mental Stability: Long hours accumulate quietly. Five minute meal breaks become tea and instant noodles. The irony is that they advise patients to exercise and eat well, but they rarely do either. “Our education teaches us how to treat patients,” one doctor said. “No one teaches us how to cope.” Another admitted she sought therapy. “Everything builds up to a point where even a therapist needs therapy. I have been under therapy, and it helped me recover.” Burnout does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like irritability. Sometimes like emotional distance. Sometimes like a raised voice in a hospital corridor that someone records without context. And that clip becomes the headline.
When asked what they expect from the government, none of the doctors demanded anything extraordinary. Their expectations were basic and structural. What they asked were:
Fixed Working Hours: Fixed and strictly enforced working hours. The regulation already says residents should work reasonable hours and be given rest. But reasonable has become flexible. Doctors said the rule needs clarity. A clear weekly cap. Proper documentation of duty hours. If someone works beyond that limit, they should be compensated for it. Not expected to treat exhaustion as part of training.
Accountability: A system where resident doctors can report unfair workload or exploitation without risking their thesis, internal marks or career progression.
Better Infrastructure: Doctors spoke about the lack of proper diagnostic tools and equipment. When something goes wrong, the blame falls on the doctor. Rarely on the system that failed to provide the tools. They do not want to be expected to deliver perfect outcomes without basic resources.
Security: Especially in government settings.Night shifts often mean minimal protection. Incidents of verbal abuse and physical intimidation are not rare. Female doctors, in particular, face harassment along with aggression. They want visible security presence and clear action when violence occurs.
Mental Health Support: Medical education trains students to diagnose and treat others. It does not prepare them to process loss, anger, or burnout. Some doctors seek therapy on their own. Others simply carry the strain quietly. Institutional counselling and structured mental health support are almost absent.
None of these demands are extravagant. They are structural. Predictable hours. Safe workplaces. Functional equipment. Space to ask for help.
They are not asking to be placed on a pedestal. “We don’t want to be treated as God,” Dr. Vanshika said. “That title comes with a lot of expectation.”
What they are asking for is simpler. A system that allows them to work without being pushed to a breaking point.
What Do Doctor Expect from Patient?
When asked this question, they acknowledged that there are doctors who behave rudely. None of them justified such behaviour. But they did ask for a little understanding of what lies behind it:
Doctor Carries the Guilt too: “We constantly think about the patients we could not save,” said doctor Najeshwari. “I have had sleepless nights wondering if I could have tried another method, if I could have diagnosed better.” The weight of a lost life does not disappear after a shift ends. It stays. They go home with it. “At the end of the day, we are trying very hard,” she said. “We are human too.”
Doctors are Not Servants: All they ask for is a little courtesy and patience. They know patients walk in with fear and pain. But they also hope there is some understanding that the system does not always move at the pace one family expects.
Conclusion
This blog is an attempt to tell the story of doctors and what they go through every day. It’s an effort to make their voices heard in a conversation where they’re often missing. It does not justify rude behaviour. It does not excuse disrespect. It also asks that we look at the full picture before forming an opinion.
Most doctors are not asking for admiration. They are asking for basic dignity, respectful behaviour, fixed working hours, and fair pay for the work they do. Just the condition that allows them to care for others without losing themselves.
Mahak Phartyal completed her bachelor's in pharmacy from Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Uttarakhand Technical University. She previously worked as a Medical Writer at Meril Life Sciences, where she wrote numerous scientific abstracts for conferences such as India Live 2024 and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). During her college years, she developed a keen research interest and published an article titled “Preliminary Phytochemical Screening, Physicochemical and Fluorescence Analysis of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis and Syzygium cumini Leaves.”
Mahak Phartyal completed her bachelor’s in pharmacy from Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Uttarakhand Technical University. She previously worked as a Medical Writer at Meril Life Sciences, where she wrote numerous scientific abstracts for conferences such as India Live 2024 and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). During her college years, she developed a keen research interest and published an article titled “Preliminary Phytochemical Screening, Physicochemical and Fluorescence Analysis of Nyctanthes arbor-tristis and Syzygium cumini Leaves.”
