Happy Doctor's Day

I woke up today to an early morning four am WhatsApp forward with one cute teddy bear auscultating another with a stethoscope.
"Oh, first July!" Went my thoughts. "Doctor's Day!!!!
And it felt kind of nice to be wished well on this day, for it was kind of like being greeted on your birthday. You know, as a kid, I'd wait with  nail-biting excitement for my birthday to arrive; not for anything else but for the happiness that I would be wearing a 'colour dress' to school that day and also because that evening dinner would be a luscious masala dosa and a too sweet Fanta from Bharat Coffee House across the road.

But with passing of time, the 'colour dress' has lost some of its charm as has the masala dosa.

So then, what is it that I would like this Doctor's Day?

A bunch of fragrant peach lilies, a packet of the bittersweet Cadbury Bourneville and maybe a bottle of Chanel No 5 would be really nice, you know. But since even that Uriah Heep of an MR peeking insistently at the doctor's clinic door is unlikely to indulge me, I'm forced to think of an alternate 'I'd like' refrain.
What about some respect, coming straight and sure from the heart of a patient? Wouldn't that be nice?
In fact, it would be very, very nice; seamlessly replacing all the peach lilies, dark chocolates and Chanel perfumes in the world. It would be the perfect gift on this Doctor's Day.

Medicine is my profession. It is my source of sustenance and it feeds me and my family. But when I had chosen Medicine, I distinctly remember that it was not because it bore the promise of being a lucrative profession. In fact at that juncture, I was rather naive about the importance of economics and finances in life. The only reason I had pursued Medicine was because I knew it was something that commanded respect. Loads of it. And how I had lusted after that respect.
But today this respect from a patient has become a rare and precious commodity. It's not available easily and when available, is rather fragile, disintegrating at the slightest chance. And that is why I think I'd like some respect gifted to me this Doctor's Day.

And as I wait in nail biting eagerness for my gift of respect to arrive, I ask: why has it become so rare? Like the silently depleting ozone layer, this respect too is vanishing, sometimes silently and sometimes with the thunder of sticks and stones raining on the skull and ribs of doctors on duty in some godforsaken government hospital in the innards of our respectful nation.

Many years back, as a fledgling doctor just emerged out of medical school, sitting in the busy busy OPD of a tiny rural hospital, I had penned a single line, one of my earliest attempts at writing. This was just after an elderly lady, an old patient of mine, had taken a little bottle of home-made ghee out of her jhola and placed it on my lap.
"Eat ghee everyday." She had told me. "It is good for your health. This one's home made."
She had mild hypertension, age related and had been under my treatment for a few months. She was a diligent patient, coming to me religiously on the fifth of every month for her review. But I knew that this review visit was only an excuse. She came to talk to me, to pour out her woes, her fears and rant against her son and his wife, her relatives, her neighbours and life in general.
Once her evaluation was over, I'd sit back and Indra Maya would begin to talk. All I did then was to listen and nod. Nod and occasionally put out my hand and pat her arm. That is all. That is all that Indra Maya needed to feel well again. And feeling well, she attributed this healing to my skill as a doctor and offered to me the little jam jar of ghee as a mark of her gratitude and respect.

I knew that Indra Maya was a part hypochondriac and wasted my time with her purposeless queries and endless complaints. I knew I could have easily thrown her out of my OPD with some terse words. I knew I could have explained in clear terms that she was a hypochondriac and that she needed to behave better with her family. I knew I could have simply given her a piece of my pretty no-nonsense mind. It wouldn't have mattered to me in any way, for she was just a patient on 'gratis'. But somehow, for whatever reason, I had given her my ear and my time and in return earned her respect and a jam jar of ghee.

So that day, placing the jam jar next to the vase decorated with Mary's flowers, I had pulled out a ruled patient case-sheet and with a ball point pen, had written:
"Being a doctor is not about being in a position of power. It is about being in a position of trust, of compassion and a patient understanding of human behaviour."

I wish I had that piece of paper with me today. I'd hang it up in my office and read it everyday. Read and meditate and work on it.

Maybe then, the lost respect would return back to me. To me and to all of us, my brotherhood of doctors.