The Tragedy that is a Medico's Life

Hey Phantoms,

I really wanted to call it a day and stop with that one post for today. It was mainly because this blogging is the only thing that comes under the category of "productive work" that I've done in the past so many months. And I was not prepared to over-work however much I loved my work. After dinner my mother told me that she had a sad news and informed me that an anesthetist I didn't even know had died in an accident and he was young. I could see now why it was sad and moreover why i should get back and write.

Just look at the Life of a Medico, what has he done for himself ? What part of his Life has he really enjoyed (unless he is obsessed with knowledge and learning). Just when he comes to know what enjoyment really is( in his teens), he is forced to sit down and study and clear his Board exams with top marks that would get him a seat in a Medical college.

And just as he thinks the struggle is over the weight of his UG subjects take him down again. Of course, he has a little bit of fun and gets a life with friends at college but how long does this last? Then before long he is buried deeper than ever in all the books he has bought since his first year to clear the PG entrance exams and get a seat. I believe all of you here are well-aware that the days when an MBBS was enough to practice are now gone and unless you do a super specialty course after your PG no one respects you, not the public and definitely not your colleagues.

So let's assume he gets into a PG course, there is still no relief for him; this time the politics and the power-struggles within his department take him down and he is only wishing when the course will be over only to go and slog under someone else in power in some other place.

With PG done he now has the challenge of getting a seat in a super-specialty course and trust me there are lesser seats for most super-specialties in India than fingers and thumbs in both your hands.

Well, let's say he gets the seat and clears his super-specialty and comes out as a "qualified" doctor, he is already fast approaching middle-age and his school friends in other sectors are already considering retirement. And all this PG and super-specialty , trust me, is not my idea of fun.

Where is the time to enjoy when now he goes out into the world to earn a little of the "necessary evil" which is required for sustenance of his self on this planet? And by now he has lost touch with or has ery little time for most of his friends from school and college alike(this not an issue now thanks to social networking sites and the mobile phone).

Somewhere in the middle of all this he gets married, sometimes he waits to chuck the book before getting married(which is impossible to do in this field) and that leaves his own kids ,if he has any, in doubt whether they should address him as "grandpa" or just "paa". [In most cases, many of them have would've lost most of the hair on their heads by the time their formal studies are over adding to the confusion].

Then if he is the child of an established doctor, the struggle is less else he has to slog to establish himself or else join a corporate hospital. And if he joins a corporate Hospital, it is just back to the power-struggles only this time he may sometimes be the cause of them. A slow rise to a position of dignity and then at the end of a career all he is left with is so-called"respect" and "job-satisfaction". Amidst all this there are innumerable humiliations, questions, tempers he has to face from many people including his patients, their attendants and seniors and the list is end-less

What real enjoyment has he had, save the boozes and stays at five-star hotels in the name of conferences which you can hardly count as real enjoyment? What has he done for himself that has nothing to do with monetary status ? Something like art or music or dance or nature some hobby that is closest to them, some little indulgences, some good things for his body like a sport or work-out, something he is really proud of to have done apart from all those tough cases in the hospital, how much of this does he have? How many people has he helped in ways other than those concerning his work? Certainly less than other fellow Homo sapiens. For most of them their Life is over even before they knew it started....

And if in the midst of all these stages of slogging they have to leave this planet due to some reason or the other is it not a waste of all that struggle(karma be damned)? All those years of slogging, the nights of sleeplessness, the exam days when time was too precious to even eat goes down the drain with all that now useless knowledge.

SO, Wake up to these realities and Live Life in a better way of which both you and your family would be proud of, for at the end of the day only what they think matters and not what the world thinks.and this is not a warning to the young ones not to take up Medicine but just a strong reminder not to forget to live in the clutter of books and diseases in the middle of which you will be burried in. The anaesthetist's sad demise brought me alive to these possiblities hope it does the same for you.

The World is yours Doc, so go out and conquer it before it is too late. . .