Who is a Doctor?

Who is a doctor? No, I am not asking you to give me the dictionary definition of the word ‘doctor,’ for Merriam Websters and Oxford dictionaries have already done a good job of that.

So I ask again, “who is a doctor?” By that, I mean, who is the person behind the title, “medical doctor?” I think, that doctors are, first of all, humans, just like you and me.

Now, not many of us accept them for who they really are. In fact, views about medical practitioners somewhat swing between 2 extremes: one, the overly expectant notion that doctors are superhuman – they never fall sick, never have problems but are born to bear all our troubles; two, the exceedingly hostile view that doctors are evil – at best, marketing agents for Big Pharma and at worst, people who only want to treat our ailments and not cure them, who lie to us so that we can remain attached to their apron strings for life.

Somewhere in between these 2 extremes however, lies a woman, a man, who was fascinated by some aspect of medicine and wanted to pursue this dream or whose journey was pretty much decided by family circumstances, (for example a child who loses his mother to cancer and chooses to pursue studies in medicine in the hopes of finding a cure to cancer), or who just wanted to contribute his ‘widow’s mite’ to reduce the anguish of the human race. Somewhere amid it all, is someone’s daughter, son, father or mother, husband or wife, who must also meet other obligations, lest he be dubbed a bigger failure.

Doctors, I think, would love to explore their ‘less serious’ side, which is necessary for them to sustain the ‘serious’ side at those times when the occasion calls for it. I say this  because in the short time that I have been blogging, I have come across 3 amazing people, all of them doctors, who churn out beautiful pieces from their rich mental and literary reservoirs. And no, they do not write about hospital business, which got me thinking, how many more of them doctors are there in the ‘blogosphere’ and why do they blog at all? Isn’t their life supposed to be all about the white coat, consulting, prescribing et al?

I learned that for these people, blogging is an emotional escape, a means to de-steam and recreate themselves, so that they can maintain sanity, work exigencies notwithstanding. That is because they are human, before all else and they have blood running through their veins.

They have feelings too. Do you know how many of them cry after they lose a patient in the operating theater? Or whose physical strength is tested out in a bout with some mentally deranged subject, who must be brought under control before further progress in treatment can be made? Or that actually throw up at the sight of so much blood (oh yes!) and must still report to duty the very next morning as if nothing happened the previous day? How on earth do they heal? Come on guys, let’s cut them some slack, shall we?

The blunt reality is that doctors do not have all the answers. If they did, the world would be on a permanent high and there wouldn’t be so many sick people, would there? Now tell me, what do you think about doctors? I’d really love to hear your honest opinion.