Reflections...on being a doctor

Sept. 1, 2020, 12:13 p.m. by Dr Gayatri Mohapatra ( 721 views)

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"Medicine means Mercy – Empathy – Dare – Integrity – Care – Ingenuity – and Ethics"

- Abhijit Naskar

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"The presence of the doctor is the beginning of the cure”. National Doctor’s Day is an opportunity for the people to acknowledge the significant role of doctors in the well-being of our society and express their gratitude towards Doctors. This day is dedicated to all medical professionals who work and serve patients round the clock to save lives and their huge contribution to medical advancement. Especially in 2020, they are the frontline warriors fighting relentlessly against the COVID pandemic.

July 1st also happens to be the birth and death anniversary of the most famous physician of India - Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy.

Studying Medicine is an ever-widening field & hopefully to understand the mechanisms in the five years of basic studies in the MBBS curriculum, is just a foundation on which an entire lifetime of continuous study and practical skills is based on. With years of experience & actual practice of medicine, wherein doctors encounter many situations which they had not been led to anticipate, do they get prepared to deal with patients effectively.

In modern times, with the huge advancement of technology in medicine, while doctors have strived to absorb the difficult task of assimilating new knowledge, it has been easy to overlook the fact that the application of the principles of science to the diagnosis and treatment of disease is only one limited aspect of medical practice. Medicine is both an art & science, supplementing each other. The practice of medicine in its broadest sense includes the whole relationship of the physician with his patient.

"We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding"

-Atul Gawande.

The treatment of a disease may be entirely impersonal but not the care of a patient which i s completely based on the interpersonal trust between the patient and his doctor.

(NOTE:Photos from internet for Illustrative purpose)

-Dr. Gayatri Mohapatra


Comments (1)

user
Mini 2 years, 5 months ago
Nicely written article!