Essay on If I were a Doctor

Every person born in this world will have an aim or goal in life. There is nothing wrong in having an ambition but one should not be overambitious.

When I was still quite young and a student in a high school, a doctor visited our school and gave a lecture on healthcare. He stressed the point that prevention is better than cure. But then, how to prevent contagious diseases which spread very easily in and unhealthy society was the question asked by one of our friends at the end of the lecture. The doctor only repeated his point on prevention but later said that what could not be prevented has to be cured. He added that it is the doctor’s duty to cure.

Medical facilities and medical care were not so well advanced in those days. But one thing common which existed then and which exists even today, is that those who have adequate money to spend on medical care can afford to have good health and those who cannot afford have to rely on faith and God for cure. It is this lack of medical facility and the ever continuing gulf between the haves and have-nots in the society that prompted me to become a doctor and serve the poor and the downtrodden.

I thought that I would study M.B.B.S. course, get employed as a doctor in a rural area, and do my best to the needy and the poor. I dreamt of a situation when all young doctors like me would be doing service in rural areas and help the sick and old. I also felt that if a doctor is doing selfless service, he would be regarded and considered as divine. I felt that my ambition in life should be to serve fellow men and not to earn money as greedy man. I was clear that by serving mankind, I would be serving God. The doctor’s lecture motivates me further to become a doctor.

I got a seat in the medical college very easily as I got top rank. I was admitted in a Government Medical College, which had then very eminent doctors and specialists on its staff. I passed my M.B.B.S., degree course with distinction and after working as a house-surgeon; I was selected to work as a doctor at Primary Health Centre, Hussinpuram. I thought I had realized my ambition in life and that I would serve the poor and the rural needy.

India is a country full of myths and superstitions. People’s faith in village deities is much more than their faith in a qualified doctor. A mystic or a tantric is more welcome than a qualified doctor.

So I had to face a new challenge which I never anticipated when I thought of becoming a doctor. Unless I live as one with the rural folk I am sure they would not accept me as one of their friends and well wishers.

Treatment becomes difficult when the patients do not cooperate. So I started learning a new lesion on what and how I should be, to function as a doctor. The new lesions learnt have brought me nearer to the people. Now they no longer believe in tantriks or mystics for cures. So they directly come to my hospital for treatment.

My love and affection towards the poor, the kind words I speak with them in their own language, the respect I show to them as fellow human beings are paying rich dividends than the actual medicines I give to the patients. I have put in to practice the ideals I cherished when was a young student in a high school.