Doctor, Have A Heart

Doctor, Have A Heart

JERRY PINTO

MID-DAY, MUMBAI’S FAVOURITE tabloid newspaper, reports that the number of applications for medical colleges has fallen from 34,000 in 2005 to 19,000 this year (“Nobody wants to be a doc” Pg 1, July 2, 2008).

Is that bad news? We are really an under-served nation when it comes to medical help but that’s in rural India. In the cities, we’re overserved. In the small suburb of Mahim, where I live in the island city of Mumbai, there are at least three dentists, two psychiatrists, a specialist of almost every conceivable kind at the several polyclinics and the last of the hold-out general practitioners. I suspect, most of the 19,000 wannabe-doctors are not dreaming of rural practices where they succour the needy. They are dreaming of air-conditioned lives — perhaps in Noida or Lokhandwala Complex or even in London or upstate New York. So what exactly are we losing? Not much, I think.

But how nice it would be if, one day, medicine did not require you to get 98 percent and above, at the plus-two level. How nice it would be if one day, medicine went back to being a caring profession instead of one to which young people are drawn because it pays well. How nice, if average johnnies with big hearts and kind faces could become doctors instead of young people who can learn several thousand organic chemistry equations and the order of the nerves in the spinal cord of the frog. How nice it would be if we could arrive at the moment when doctors don’t get paid when you fall ill but get paid because you are well. Legend has it that this was how doctors were paid in China. It sounds like a very good way of doing things — rather like the community gym, where you pay by the number of days you bunk rather than the number of days you use the facilities.

I can hear you wondering: but won’t a doctor who gets 60 percent at the plus two level be a little dim? I wonder whether there is any real correlation between the ability to memorise facts and figures, and reproduce them within a fixed amount of time, in a legible script, and the ability to diagnose an illness. I wonder whether there is any real reason for us to believe that examination marks have anything to do with success in the world or the ability to say, “I’m sorry I don’t know what’s wrong with you but could you go next door and ask that chap?” (When was the last time your doctor said that to you?) I wonder if there is any relationship between being one of the top scorers and the ability to be humble enough to admit that the human body is quite a marvellous piece of work and will often set itself right if you give it some rest, some quiet and some appropriate food?

I have a dream. One day, doctors will be people like you and me, kindly people who want to help the ill.