irony….
when i was still young, young enough to believe everything that was told to me, i was convinced that a profession as a doctor is a noble one. a doctor is able to save lives, do many great things, make other people happy by keeping them healthy…
i was grown up in a society that believes a student’s ultimate goal of going to school is to become a doctor….or at least i had that kind of impression…even the co-curiculum was design in such a way that ppl could become so….(again it was just me)…and as might be expected, i grew up wanting to be a doctor….
once my aunt told me that one can’t be rich becoming a doctor….if that was my goal, i should have go into other profession….being a doctor is about "calling"….i didn’t know what she meant by then, but i was sure of one thing….,money isn’t my goal….coz i didn’t have any concept about money…it was pure interest back then…
but doctors often give the impression that he/she should be a caring and loving to his/her patient…but in fact, great doctors are those most heartless and emotionless ones…they have to train themselves in such a way that they could bring any bad news to the patient’s relatives without themselves breaking down first… and he has to do that with all his patients….throughout his career…he must not put any personal emotion when treating his patients…because this might cloud his judgement…..
in fact, in a room of patient and his relatives, nurses and doctors, the doctor is the one everyone is looking up to, and expected to control the whole situation in the room…..he needs to be the strongest, mentally and emotionally…. he is the one least expected to cry when everyone else in the room does….
after a series of facing life and death….a doctor will get used to it…treating it as another natural phenomenon….but this doesn’t mean that the doc doesn’t try his best to treat the patient, or use it as an excuse for not able to treat the patient… but if he/she was to put in too much emotion in a single case, he would collapse, and the other patient’s life would be at stake….
i’ve been to the morgue 2 weeks ago for my operative surgery classes… normal ppl would be terrified seeing naked dead bodies lying on the ground ,stacking up one on top of another….but somehow i treated it as a just a study material…i cut his skin without any hesitation, stretch and separate his fascia, focusing on finding his arteries before doing the ligature….throughout the whole process, i did not even look at his face…i did not feel a little sense of fear or guilt….nor do i feel sorry for his death…..though i know i should….
i am worried….will i turn into an emotionless robot soon?? a robot doctor who knows how to treat the patient, but feels nothing when something bad happens?? is that really what it takes to be a good doctor?? if that is so, it really differs alot from the image of doctor i had when i was 5 years old…
society’s expectation and hopes for doctors are very high….they are often expected to treat wierd phenomenon that happens to the human organisms…they are expected to know everything….for some they are miracle workers…for some, they are even Angels sent by God to help the human to relieve their pain….
it’s normal for a small kid with the ambition of becoming a doctor to have the passion to save everyone who has disease, and to boast that he do not wish to see anyone die anymore….but as this small kid grows….he will soon realise that reality is much more cruel than he thought…..he is not as powerful as he thought he would be…when he realise spiderman, superman and batman don’t really exist…
in fact, as we grow up, the more knowledge we acquire, the more we know of our limitations. doctors can’t cure all diseases known to human…in fact, there are many of them that the docs can’t do anything about , that the doctor had to watch the patient’s condition getting worse day by day….helplessly….
being a doctor aren’t as facinating as it seems. under the fancy white coat, lies huge responsibilities. lifes are in their hands. other than those factors that couldn’t be changed for the time being…doctors must ensure their capability to save the people with their knowledge…..they shouldn’t allow any chance of mistake, or doctor will be as good as the murderers….given license to kill….
whatever it is….i’ll do my best….i’ll gain as much knowledge now ….i won’t settle for less than my best…because in the future, in case something bad happens after all i have done, i want to be able to tell the patient’s relatives that the patient had recieved the best care a doctor could have possibly give him…
