BOOKS AND BANGALORE

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Everyday Is My Day For I Am A Doctor Today


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"No. You know what I feel right now. 

I don't feel miserable or angry. 

I don't feel good or bad. 

I feel nothing. 

Which feels great."

-Dr. Gregory House M.D.-


Although he says this in a personal context in Season 7 it makes me brood over the 'heal vs. feel' matters of medicine. With years of schooling and long working hours, respect and money is what the world thinks comes invariably but there is more to the life of a doctor. Missed trips and parties, skipped lunch and dinners and a hundred other little sacrifices made everyday are just a part of it. The many people we meet and treat their stories and the line that we as a doctor need to draw and many times cross. It isn’t easy to curb human emotions and impulses. For healing is more than empathy and less than business, it is life, yours and others. Becoming and being one is therefore a prodigious feat in today’s times especially with so much commercialization. Sometimes you feel like giving it all up and wonder what made you become one and sometimes there is nothing else that brings you more pride than your profession.

One thing I do not understand is a class of people among the family and friends, who every time you meet are up with their medical knowledge and inquiries, wherever you go 'THAT-ONE-IS-A-DOCTOR' tag follows. There is one 'diabetes' aunty, 'knee pain' grandfather, 'acidity or heart attack' uncle and one friend or cousin with all the internet knowledge who knows much better than what you have learnt and seen in your experience.  I bet there is no other job which follows a person wherever he goes. 

So hear it goes to all my fellow doctors who serve without armors and deal with the despicable. Be proud of who you are. There are not many like you, who see life and death so close, who can change the distance and time between them. Isn't that a beautiful thing? To matter so much to another being.


A happy doctor's day to you all ! Yay! :-) 

-R.

1 comment:

Chandru Angiya said...

Truth and how! (Guilty of it myself)