The good physician treats the disease; the
great physician treats the patient who has the disease. -- William Osler
He is the best physician who is the most
ingenious inspirer of hope. -- Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
What is the best part of being a doctor?
That's like asking: what's the best part of being alive? clearly, being alive
is the best part of being alive. And so is
being a doctor the best part of being a doctor.
Rhetoric apart, being a doctor is more
than having specialist knowledge in a specialised field. It is being human and
being humane, above all else. To be human means realizing that your knowledge
is limited and that you will fail from time to time. To be humane means to have
compassion and empathy no matter how trying the times.
Being a doctor is rewarding because it
is challenging, a continuing learning process. Human body is complex. How it works amazes and scares you; makes you
humble. And just as you think you understand most of it in your speciality, new
mysteries, new challenges, new protocols, new medicines, new information, new
data, and new lines of treatment appear. So you are always the challenged,
always the learner, never the master.
Even when you have seen a thousand
patients with same symptoms, done a thousand of the same surgery, you are
alert, on the lookout for that one minute difference that could dramatically
affect the outcome for the patient. Medical literature is full of stories where
missing out that one minute difference cost the patient dear. And though you
are trained in decision-tree based algorithm to diagnose and evidence
based medicine to treat, that is not
enough. Because medicine is more than just science. It is art. It is the instinct
borne out of knowledge, experience, and is, well, a sort of sixth sense that
you develop over a period of time being a doctor. That is why, as a study in
the US has shown, an experienced doctor makes up his mind on patient's ailment
within seconds of seeing him; a new doctor will struggle for hours and still be
hard pressed to diagnose.
The greatest pleasure a doctor derives
is when he helps a patient beat the odds, recover from a hopeless situation,
walk out of the hospital when everyone thought he never would. Doctor's joy
then is no less than that of the patient's family and friends.
Doctor's reward comes not only from
treating a patient's illness, but also from helping him with his loneliness,
fear, anxiety; reward comes from knowing that you make a difference in the
society; reward comes from knowing that the society holds you in esteem for
that reason.
If you are seeking financial rewards,
then medicine is not for you. An MBA can, and does, earn more. And getting MBA
takes less time. And in the present times of commercialism and malpractice
suits, the financial rewards have become even less. In the US, professional
insurance for the hardest hit speciality, Ob & Gyn, is upwards of $ 200,000
a year. For these reasons many physicians in the US have given up medicine. You
may find a gynaecologist selling cars.
Doctors have the joy of helping people
out of their misery, getting them to feel well again. And the sorrow of
delivering bad news to the patients and their near and dear ones.
But then life is a mix of triumph and
tragedy, of joy and sorrow.
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