Physician heal thyself

They study hard. They work harder. They dedicate their life to illness. Sometimes they rise above all this and start to think of wellness!

I have been a doctor for so long now that I cannot count the years on my fingers. I am finding myself disillusioned. Disillusioned with the profession that kills its soldiers. Disillusioned with the soldiers who are like Zombies, not humans.

Intelligent. Idiots.

The doctors spend all their life and time on making people better, battling diseases that make other 'ordinary' mortals live in fear and sometimes die with fear. What puts others out of business is precisely what defines the business of a doctor. Extraordinary!

Invincible.

And human. They also lose. Nature wins. They also lose, and the disease wins.

And one would think having studies the life processes in such minute detail would fill them with awe and reverence at the marvel that life is, and particularly the wonder that the human life is. Yet! One finds very few who feel the reverence. One finds fewer still who will acknowledge this wonder.

What does this profession do to us?

I see jealousy and narrow-mindedness all around me. I see insecure humans who pose as invincible gods and feel great when they are placed on a pedestal. Human fallacies and vanities make us all behave oddly. Most doctors are average or even below average human beings. Only the averages are higher because the baseline is higher!

People are too full of themselves to see better around themselves, and we see them in all professions. Somehow, however, we see many many more like this in medicine! Medicine, as a profession, places a lot of stresses on its practitioners and leaves very little time or energy for them to do anything else. Observe a coffee table conversation between doctors- " Wow! Man! What a case! Have you seen anything like that before?" Life moves around being doctors. Nothing else. They are not doing too well at being friends, or parents or a lot of other roles and relations that ordinary humans derive their value and strength from.

Physician... Heal thyself...

Only when you are fit and healthy, can you deliver your care in a fit and healthy manner...