DOCTOR'S DAY !!

I did not know where to start my first blog from. So I decided that I would go with my own profession. In this blog, I would like to discuss the intricacies of being a doctor.

                         Our day starts normally, same as people of other professions. But as each second passes away it keeps on becoming serious and complicated. I still remember the first and second day of my internship. The first day because of the sense of purpose it gave to my life and hard work for the last four and a half years. Second day because of how worried I was for a total stranger. I am talking about the follow-up of the patients admitted on my first day as a clinician. Since then it has become a habit to worry about the health of others. 

                                                                          So as I was telling you, that, we wake up with the same woes of not wanting to overwork and wishing for some more hours of sleep. But as the time passes by we start thinking about others - The Patients under us. Be it someone who can't be saved or someone who was admitted just for a minor ailment. All are equally important and precious to us. When we usually have our morning breakfast, instead of thinking about worsening or improving political situation or Indian Cricket Team winning a match we start making treatment plans for our patients and start working on how to squeeze more and more patients in our regular OPD hours. Yeah ! We want to include more and more patients in our OPD daily, partly because of monetary benefits but majorly to cover a maximum number of diseased people of our community as it makes community better, if, there are less of them. This sense of responsibility towards community comes in our ethics due to The Hippocratic Oath which make us realise before we leave our college that how important our work is, not just for our own progress but for others too. 

                                                                     Anyway coming back to our day - after a long and hectic jam in major cities or reasonable traffic in second tier cities we reach our place of worship or as a layman calls it our money printing factory. Reaching there we realise that the workload has already increased as 'n' new cases just came requiring emergency treatment and the ones who were admitted are already anxious because of their stay in the hospital. When I was a beginner I used to get a sinking feeling in my gut. A sinking feeling of my already made treatment plans being crushed. But after a certain period, you tend to cope up with it in new ways. So as we enter our hospital expecting the unexpected we call the most experienced nurse and give her orders for the admitted patients and ask her to request them to wait for a little as we can't be divided into two parts and emergency always needs to be treated first. But this is generally misinterpreted as misdemeanour or hotheadedness on our part. Ignoring the obvious reactions of all the laymen we go and try to tackle the emergencies to best of our abilities. Yeah ! best of our abilities. We have limits too.This completes almost one-fourth of our day. 

                                                       Now comes the turn of all those who were admitted to the hospital by us or the resident on duty. We all generally refer it as ROUNDS. After completing our rounds we prefer sitting alone in a room for fifteen minutes and gather our thoughts of all the events since morning. The time when you see a doctor sitting alone in his compartment doing nothing. That's what I am talking about. We tend to gather our thoughts to revise the changes in treatment plans and then revising what orders to give in the pre-lunch hours and how to tackle any emergency during the regular OPD hours. 

                                                        Then starts the OPD or as the layman calls it the time of prescribing costlier drugs for doctor's own benefit. Sometimes it's eventful sometimes it's not. Events range from genuine problems like acute cases to made up pains and problems. In our country, it might also include a wrestling match between the doctor and two hundred relatives of a patient. As the OPD finishes we start feeling hungry, but, it has to wait because the pre-lunch orders are to be given. We have to check up on all the cases again before we go to the cafeteria and try to put anything in our own body since six in the morning. Skipping straight to the lunch action. Generally, it is the most peaceful meal of the day and you'll find most of us clustered together in one corner of a big mess or an eating area. Just eating and minding our own businesses because everyone on that table is damn tired of talking before finishing their lunch. Sometimes, this only pleasure is taken away again by emergencies,  but, that kind of intrusion we don't mind as we live and breathe for it. Phew !! Already four in the evening. We realise that despite our best efforts we still are behind our own set limits and targets. So we start channelling our remaining strength into evening OPD and rounds in the wards or constant monitoring of screens filled with vitals in ICUs. After the hectic schedule of second OPD and second round of wrestling with the same family - time comes for rounds again. This basically completes our whole work day or as I like to call it as a real DOCTOR'S DAY. But the story doesn't end here. 

                                                              Once we are alone, going back home or lying in our room thinking about life we think how shitless and thanks less it can be to be at our position. How easy it is for someone way less educated than us to come and question our ethics. I don't believe that it's not the right of a patient to know things but people tend to use violence, abusive language and threats to take out that information which is the most irksome feature of this profession. We are flattered when we are compared to God but people have to get it that neither we consider us to be a God nor wish to become one. Every doctor in this world is also a human being with basic primitive needs but very strict principles. Yeah, we like driving a good car. We enjoy luxury. We enjoy taking time out from our schedule and enjoy the company of our near and dears. We as people of other professions are normal humans with a lot of hard work and studies behind us. Which in a real sense never stops in life.

                                         Reading to all of this one would think that I like to crib about normal problems of life. No, my motive to make such a horrible sounding narration is not to cry about my problems but to put it out in front of you how you or someone in your life misinterprets us. Yeah! people tend to misinterpret often, things such as basic needs of the person in front of them. Still, when we are about to sleep thinking about leaving that place of work it comes in our mind. The thought which makes us get up every morning - The feeling of immense satisfaction of saving someone's life. The face of that mother or a patient who blessed us while leaving our ward. That feeling of our country needing us to be more tolerant towards the big challenges of life for her progress. The needs of those few who actually deserve to get every attention from us and finally the sense of responsibility and love towards every soul be it human, animal or any other living being cause we can't give life but sure can prolong it.

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