Gone are the days when the physicians (doctors) call us by name.
Today, we are only ‘sirs’ and ‘madams’.
Doctors are no more uncles to our little children, nor could our children be threatened by their injections!
No doctor today feels the pulse or sees the paleness of eyes to determine any.
A robotized” jeevans “they became!
They depend too much on gadgets and reports rather than behaviour and observations.
They select the lab and choose the brand (for medicines)
The “tied” persons gain the first entry while the guinea pigs wait endlessly.
They develop good marketing strategy and try to retain them endlessly.
How many visits to as many clinics and how many patients, mornings and evenings?
The waiting crowd outside the clinic is a status symbol for a doctor.
A doctor who enters the clinic seems to be more tired and weary than the waiting patients. They need treatment and counselling to limit their hours of working and the number of patients to be attended a day. They sip their cups of tea and take their calories in between the testing of patients and much to their embarrassment too!
They are not alone in their plight of fulfilling the needs of their sons and wives.
They have their cousins in the policeman, the engineer in a power utility, a manager in a responsible position, an entrepreneur, a driver so on and so forth.
How many of us know these professionals missed their Diwali, Christmas, Pongal and family functions this year?
When the fans are keeping you comfortable during nights, an engineer is at work somewhere far.
When your kith and kin have reached on the morning of a Diwali, be sure a driver was at his wheels through the night!
Every hour you are safer at the vigil of an unsung policeman on rounds even in the thick of the night!
Their children too would be waiting for their dads; their wives also would be tired of waiting to have a dinner together.
But society showers respect on doctors which are denied to these brothrens.
Doctors are all ordained for the mission, there is no escape from it. It is not open to all but to the chosen few. God has chosen them to be doctors and they are all carved in His palms. Let those who want to serve humanity enter this noble profession. Earn the hearts of men and women: they may not sing a poem to them but make them the very poets.
It is not a job but a ministry. Forever they have to remain a doctor to serve and only to serve, lest do not please enter the profession at all. People do not require intelligent doctors; there are plenty in the market now. But what people need is good doctors, dedicated doctors and patient doctors.
Should not they feel proud about the way people still revere them at their cost? Even today the most revered of all professions is the medical profession. So no grumbling, sirs, that a son is waiting or a wife is tired. There is an engineer’s son and a driver’s wife waiting and tired.
They can cut the beautiful bodies? But not alive!
(The writer’s email: johnbritto1947@gmail.com)
