The VIP Trap

Can you imagine the confusion when a “VIP” patient lands in the ward—and the VIP happens to be the father of a doctor from the same department?

I saw it up close in 1983.

My father had been diabetic for nearly ten years. That week, he was admitted to our old medical ward on the ground floor—the building that now houses Community Medicine. He couldn’t swallow properly and wasn’t taking fluids. His blood sugars ran high and kept swinging. In those days we didn’t have fancy bedside glucometers. We adjusted treatment the old-fashioned way—by checking urine sugar again and again, sometimes six times a day.

I was a young lecturer in Medicine then, so I had easy access. After finishing my work, I would sit by his bed and do what sons do when they also happen to be doctors. I checked his urine sugar, wrote it down carefully, measured his blood pressure, looked at his nasogastric tube, and kept an eye on his neurological status. I tried to look calm, but inside I was constantly alert—listening for a change in his breathing, watching his face, waiting for some new trouble to announce itself.

For the first few days, I assumed things were running smoothly. Senior consultants came, spoke kindly, examined him, and moved on. Everyone seemed attentive. My father, too, felt reassured. He had always trusted doctors, and now three of them were hovering over him like guardian angels.

By the seventh day, I realised something odd.

My father had plenty of visitors, but no single doctor in charge.

Dr. O.P. Gupta thought Dr. A.P. Jain was looking after him because I worked closely with Dr. Jain. Dr. Jain assumed Ulhas was the main man because of our family bonds and his natural leadership. Ulhas, in turn, felt my father should technically be in Unit 1 because he had been admitted on Dr. Gupta’s admission day.

So my father was being seen by everyone—and owned by no one.

Every morning and evening, all three would still come. They stood at the bedside, glanced at the monitoring sheet, asked about the urine sugar, offered a few encouraging words, and walked away. Each visit looked like responsibility. In reality, it was shared goodwill floating without a centre.

It was VIP care in its most confusing form: extra attention, but unclear accountability.

I didn’t point it out to them. They were all senior to me, and I was still new enough to choose silence over argument. Besides, I knew how such conversations go—explanations, counter-explanations, and polite insistence that everything is under control. Meanwhile, the patient remains in limbo.

So I did what seemed simplest.

I took charge.

Once I felt my father was stable enough to go home, I discharged him myself. I filled the discharge card, assigned him to a unit on paper, wrote out his medicines, and brought him home.

He did well after that. The episode ended quietly, without drama—thankfully.

But it stayed with me.

It taught me that VIP treatment can be a strange thing. It looks like the best care, but it can create a fog—too many hands, too many good intentions, and no clear line of responsibility. And it reminded me of something basic that hospitals sometimes forget: kindness is important, but clarity is safer.

That week, my father recovered. I did too—though in a different way. I learnt, early in my career, that in medicine, everyone must know who is holding the rope.

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