On this Doctor’s Day, let’s take a moment to revisit our starting points, analyse our paths and focus on our goals as doctors.
When I decided to compete against my peer group before I got into medicine and became a doctor, I did so to prove that I was good at academics and could also succeed. I believe most of us would fall into this category as well, as getting into medicine is considered a success in itself.
little did I know the importance of wielding a stethoscope with two earpieces and one chest piece, listening to the body sounds and patients’ aches, pains and complaints. In the past, a doctor used to be a missionary, a healer, who would patiently listen to all of this and relieve the pain and suffering and, hopefully, prolong lives. A doctor used to be a messiah for families who could ill afford preventive actions.
However, over the years, with advancements in science and technology, preventive measures have advanced medicine and introduced several devices delivering technology to the masses, which is primarily intended for the welfare of society to prevent the occurrence of illnesses. However, this boon is also a bane on the doctors’ community. The paths chosen by some of our brethren have been lost to the primary purpose of delivering technology rather than healing the masses.
The industry has commercialised the delivery of doctors’ services and has reduced the missionary to a skilled labourer or a merchandise to be sold at the behest of investors and owners of technology. Here is where the goals come into focus and hence, my write-up.
To revisit the words spoken by the most notable teacher of modern medicine, Dr Tinsely Harrison, I quote: “No greater opportunity or obligation can fall to a human being than to become a physician. In the care of the suffering he needs technical skill, scientific knowledge, and human understanding. He who uses these with courage, with humanity, and with wisdom will provide a unique service to his fellow men, and will build an enduring edifice of character within himself. The physician should ask from God no more than this; yet he should be content with no less.”
To ask from God no more than this and yet have an unerring accuracy to be content with no less is a very arduous task to achieve for professionals in the modern era. The delivery of the art of healing has made medical professionals only skilled labourers in the whole process and doctors are forced in multiple ways to become adept in selling their art of healing for a particular price.
A professional, however, cannot be separated from his personal being. If he does not contain the quality of integrity, he is worthless; if he does, he is priceless. The value is either nothing or is infinite. He has no goods to sell, no rights to the processes of service, for what is the share of a man’s worth if he does not contain the quality of integrityIJ
So, do not set a price on yourself. Do not censor your thoughts to gain a wider audience. love life, share your knowledge, train your next generation and keep the interests of the patient as your sole purpose.
Be reckless and spendthrift in pouring out your talent to all whom it can be of service. Never confuse performance, which is great, with compensation: be it money, power or fame, which is trivial, to what a doctor can achieve or has been granted to achieve by the power of healing.
All this may be considered impractical and too idealistic by the present standards and requirements yet too basic on becoming a doctor. Certain it is that one must survive however maintain these ideals even if you have to constantly struggle.
Systems within which we operate are far from being perfect and the pains of evolution have to be endured by the beings in the generation, be it doctors or other professionals, as a matter of fact. The sanctity awarded by the society to doctors is to be felt consciously by us and we must resist every force pushing us in any direction other than our goal. In the course of “becoming a doctor”, are we “unbecoming a doctor” in the modern eraIJ I wonder!
(Dr Vinay Sanghi is rated as one of the “top cardiologists of the USA” by the Consumer Reseach Forum and has now returned to his country to practice the art of cardiology and is now the Principal Interventional Cardiologist at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi. He can be reached at drsanghi.vinay@gmail.com)