What it means to be a doctor?

From my very childhood I grew up surrounded by doctor parents, patients, surgeries, emergencies,  joy of healing and intensely painful terminal event.

Life for my parents was about saving lives, seeing the smiles on strange people that frequented our hospital and being the care givers to people who had placed their trust and life in their hands. Being parents to us came second for them.  Family functions and celebrations also meant taking time away from the function to look after the multitude of health problems of various family members. This was normal as I saw it. This was happiness as I perceived it. I was to become the chip of the old block and so I did.

Studying for as many hours there are in a day was normal. Attending to emergencies on Diwali or festival was normal. Missing out on weddings and family get togethers was normal. Sundays spent in wards cleaning up stinking pus filled wounds was normal.

Death certificates to wailing relatives holding back your own disturbed minds, and checking your emotions lest they show on the face as the cancer was declared, came with intense training of the mind and body but gently chipped away at the years of a healthy life. Keeping calm in emergency situation, handling mass casualties, discussing illness with distraught patients became a part of the personality.

Yet life became more and more interesting and satisfying as challenges thrown by disease were overcome with sheer hard work and grit. The responsibility on the shoulders of people’s lives sat heavy and even interfered with a normal family life that I had created, yet being a doctor made me happy and contented.

All of us in this unique profession go through similar trials and tribulations.  We strive hard to reach where we go. We become morally accountable and emotionally involved in every patient that comes to us in distress.

Last few years have changed the perception of what it means to be a doctor. For a people low on happiness and high on daily struggles of life, doctors became an easy and soft target to vent out the sorrows and frustrations. They forgot that saving lives was an effort and not a sureity. They forgot that body and disease responds in different ways and nothing can be predicted but tried hard enough, which we were doing anyway.

They forgot that we were just as them, mortal and made of skin and bones. We hurt just the same, we face the same diseases, we cry, laugh and eat just as everyone else. We are hypertensive and diabetic much before our patients, we have stents in our heart and we occasionally need psychiatric help. We are just as helpless as them , yet we try our best.

Trust us to give you the best chance in any disease. Trust us to feel your pain and anguish. Trust us to try just as hard as we would for our own loved ones. Trust us when we leave everything, family, home , small crying babies, distraught relatives and friends and rush to be with you to fight and win the battle against disease.

TRUST US

VIOLENCE WILL ONLY BRING SORROW TO EVERYONE

Let us be and do what we do best- help you when you need us the most.

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST DOCTORS

Dr. REINA KHADILKAR