A Good Doctor’s Daughter
© Dr. Rajas Deshpande
We sat inside her home, not able to speak. It was a Sunday. The doorbell rang. My classmate Siya looked at me, indicating with her eyes to please answer it.
Siya had lost her father that early morning. We had just finished the last rites and returned with that feeling of emptiness of life which prevails at such moments. Her father was a successful pediatrician, known for his excellent diagnosis and humanitarian approach. He had passed away at a very early age due to a rare cancer. He had kept working till the day he was admitted. His devastated family was staring at a long dark tunnel.
I went and opened the door.
“Doctorsaab hai kya? (Is the doctor home?)” asked a man in his thirties. Behind him were his wife and a son, about ten years old.
“No” I replied, but his wife immediately said: “Please, my son is his patient since last ten years, he has fever since last three days, we must meet the doctor”.
I requested him to please clear the door, shut it behind myself, and whispered to him: “Doctorsaab passed away early this morning”.
They looked at each other.
“How?” the husband asked.
“He had a cancer, he had some sudden complication” I replied.
After a pause. The husband asked “ Can you suggest some good pediatrician nearby?”
I did, and they went away. © Dr. Rajas Deshpande
There was no word of feeling sorry for the doctor who had treated their son for ten years. Not even a formal gesture of condolence. Their child wasn’t very sick either, to skip the basic courtesy. For the next few days, I was at their place on and off, and somehow expected that man to return to express some form of condolence or gratitude. It never happened.
Then over a period of years, the truth gradually dawned: that this is normal. No one comes back to ask a dead or retired doctor’s family if they need any help.
Another young colleague of mine, a diabetologist, passed away recently. He had done phenomenal social work, treating many patients free, and even arranging for many patient’s education. Every time he referred a poor patient to me, he called up, requested me to see the patient free. We all gladly did. We had many common patients who followed up later with me, after his death. Unfortunately none of the patients who he had called about ever expressed anything beyond “He was a good doctor. Now I go to this doctor”.
I wonder how many of these patients will ever realize that every time this doctor had seen them free, he had taken a share of what his own children would have inherited, and given it to that patient.
I am a fan of Ayn Rand. I believe that it is nobody’s duty to help me, and that I should rely only upon myself. But unless this stands on both sides, it becomes meaningless. While the expectations from every doctor are expressed in heaps, when it comes to rewarding the good results “blessings, satisfaction of saving a life and good wishes” are conveniently considered enough. I sincerely doubt whether the future generations of doctors will be able to buy their petrol with blessings and satisfaction. © Dr. Rajas Deshpande
Why is the compulsion of “courteous, polite speaking” only applied to the doctors? Why cannot our society learn the same? The idiotic claim (often supported by some media legal officers) that ‘a patient is in distress and so doctors must accept the anger, impolite behavior, violence or abuse’ is so stupid and meaningless! Will a judge ever accept such reactions by an angry criminal? By the way, if the patient is stressed, is the doctor also not stressed for years? Is the doctor then allowed to misbehave? If the doctors can learn courtesy, why cannot others?
It is so funny that even the great politicians who keep on throwing mud and blood upon each other, use basest language of threats in public day in and day out advise doctors about how they should learn courtesy, humanity and communication.
Siya has now become a successful practitioner. After her father’s death, she wasn’t helped by the government, society or the patients that her father treated. The family had to compromise a lot to complete education of all the sibs.Yet she became an excellent doctor by her own wish, her own conviction and continues to be praised by her patients for her courtseys. After all, she is a good doctor’s daughter!
But her smile, when her patient compliments her, is hollow.
© Dr. Rajas Deshpande
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