Health in itself is a complicated issue. In this broader context of health, doctors are supposed to treat the patients and provide advice for prevention, promotion, and maintenance of health and wellbeing fo society. Majority of these activities are based on the events like infrastructure, safe water, hygiene, clean environment, etc. which are responsible for the majority of ill health, are beyond the control of us as doctors. We can understand this with a simple example, due to lousy infrastructure or inability of government and political system, our water is getting polluted, polluted water leads to many waterborne diseases leading to illness, we all know this, but with every outbreak the burnt of anger and emotional outrage comes to the doctors and hospitals.
Human sufferings have multiple dimensions like physical, psychological, social, cultural, religious and scientific. Doctors generally entered in our life in some health-related issue, means we meet a doctor when we are suffering. Any state of suffering demands empathy, but for a doctor, it becomes a routine, many times it is overwhelming, since all the people coming to visit us, have certain sufferings, and every one of them is seeing his or her own pain as the biggest one. All clinicians, physicians, and surgeons face such situations on a daily basis, you can visit the emergency of a hospital near you, and just sit there for a while. Overburdened, exhausted, overworked are few words we can describe the working situation of doctors in our country. Understaffed healthcare facilities with lack of modern support system with increased population lead to overcrowding and mob situations in hospitals, leaving doctors helpless and least heard in crisis situations. Results are in front of us, in the forms of violence against doctors and healthcare workers.
Being a surgeon, I have been at the forefront of many emergency and crisis situations in different hospitals, both in private and government. It is easier to preach to doctors to be humane and practice patience, but it is not easy to do so many times. It created a sense of helplessness, irritation, and anxiety among doctors. Appart from affecting their health it also affects their behavior. I have noticed most of the hardworking clinicians are working under tremendous stress. It is very easy to make culprit and villain out of a diligent and efficient doctor immediately, without listening to him and going in depth of the incidences. It is demotivating to doctors, and it is very harmful to the healthcare system of our country. I have noticed a creeping tendency among clinicians to become more defensive and careful in dealing with emergency situations. It is good to fix the responsibility, but at the same time, it is more necessary to provide a conducive and fearless environment in treating patients in our hospitals.
The concept of God is created by human beings. Our fear and anxieties created this concept of God. So, we can say that the God is a creation of human intelligence and the human mind. Likewise, we doctors being considered second to God, or God on earth need to be opposed and removed. We are living in the era of science, and we are practicing scientific medicine where there should not be any role for such phrases. We doctors should not be happy with such adjectives as well. We are human beings with specialized knowledge of medicine to treat people and prevent and promote their health. We need to be good human being, caring and helping societies and communities to achieve good health, rather than being decorated as God. Communicating our limitations to people in a very scientific way is necessary. We need to refrain ourselves with extreme jingoism about our treatment processes and miraculous treatment achievements. Restraining ourselves from making comments about fellow doctors without knowing the situations and circumstances is very important.
Medicine is one of the oldest professions in the history of human civilization. It is rightly called as a 'Nobel Profession.' Over the period of time, it has taken a form of business. In this business, we doctors are being used by corporates and governments both. An ordinary doctor is quickly becoming the target of this system. It is very easy and convenient to put all the blame on the doctors for all the problems created by politicians, beurocrates, and management, they do it very quickly and efficiently to hide their responsibilities. Naturally, our basic human tendencies of greed and getting success quickly, which are prevalent in society, also need to be addressed, especially among the young generation of doctors. It is the responsibility of senior colleagues in the profession to create communication channels within the doctor community and with the society to put the situation in proper scientific perspective.
Therefore, spiritual health is the need of the hour to understand in its proper perspective by doctors first, since then only it will be possible to propagate the idea of spiritual health in communities and society. Spiritual health can be defined in simple terms as "Health of our human thought processes, to keep it on the positive side, that means to keep our thought processes in line with humanity and human values." We generally take our religiosity and religious beliefs as our spirituality, it is erroneous. Spirituality is a highly evolved human thought process, which shapes, controls, heals and correct our all other thought processes in the domain of religion, culture, society, philosophy, and science. Our religiosity and religious thought process are created on the base of spirituality, but the majority of it is constituted by our beliefs, practices, and rituals. The evolved function of spirituality is to maintain and promote our positive thoughts and correct and heal the negative thoughts in our religion, culture, and philosophy. So, if we follow our real spiritual thought process and spirituality, it will help us in all domains of our health and professinal duties.
With this Happy Doctors Day to all of you.
Mahesh Bhatt.
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