Letter from a doctor

A doctor is a life saver but have you wondered, has the person himself understood the meaning of life. Does he know the value of life? Being a doctor is really respectful, but is he really worthy of that love and admiration?

Well, today let me tell you a story. A story of a girl, a normal girl on a discovering journey. So, it all began when she literally wished that she had never dreamt of becoming a doctor. When, all she wanted was to run away from where she was. It all began with lose of hope and rise of self contemplation. But little did she know that she was trying to escape from her fate and there is none. Well that’s a past now.

October,2016: I entered my anatomy practical class room, my eyes went to four uncovered cadavers,without even a single thread mistakenly thrown on them. For the first one month our mission was to sustain the formalin smell and not vomit and the second was to not get awkward around the naked bodies. I had a place less than 7 meters to that cadaver and most of the time I wondered where is his family and other time I was filled with questions whether we really need to have him like this. As time passed million more ethical, social, cultural questions started taking rounds in my mind without my awareness that I have started on a new path. And I think its like, the questions come to you when you least expect it. Slowly as days passed we ripped through his skin, cutting his vessels and nerves. And one day my turn came. I remember myself holding a scalpel, standing next to the cadaver. That day the white coat seemed heavier than any other day. One year, we ripped him, part by part, through his skin, muscles, vessels and organs. We synchronised it with our theoretical knowledge of what would be happening in his body when he would have been alive. Through the journey, I understood, to study, means to understand, analyse and make an outlook. Weeks became months and months became years, and we got more and more submerged under the heavy books. But if you ask me, the greatest book I have ever read was of that unclaimed body on my table.

Well, there is something else also I understood in my journey, that is human mind. Trust me, that was the toughest part for me, to understand human psychology. But to be honest I don’t think I still do, its just that I have found a way to deal with it. I have managed to figure out the things which could invade peace of mind and I have learned to ignore or avoid it. Because after a point of time it becomes a necessity so that you can maintain sanity.

Another thing I understood is that there is nothing called normal. A thought process that keeps you in harmony with yourself and the society can be demarcated as sane. But what interested me more is that, it can vary from person to person. Why is it important to be sane then? Well, i think its because to help a person who is suffering,you need to soothe him not only physically but mentally. Its important to not let a judgement effect the course of treatment,to keep our hippocratic oath of helping the patient with the utmost of our capabilities and capacities. And that was when I found out how badly we are diseased by the society. And at the same time I believe that opinions play an important role in our life. The major issue arises when we fail to tolerate another. I believe, this is where a doctor learns to become kind enough to help even if you are on the wrong path and brave enough to tell you that you are on the wrong path. For me, that is the most attractive part.

Five years into struggle with the dead and the living, with the seen and not seen, with the books and the practicals, with the body and the mind. Five years of lost days and sleepless nights, longing of home and long distance fights, growing and helping. It’s a journey to understand the importance of time and hard work,the grief of falling down, the love of friends and the need of motivation. It’s a journey of self awareness, of self value and understanding the worth of every small steps towards, what we love doing. It’s a journey of understanding that there is no breathe without hope, no dream without fear. And the importance of acceptance, and not forgetting to get up and strive, no matter how dark the clouds are.To be honest there are much more things, we have to understand, and our life is pushing us everyday, every second to learn.

So lets be little more helpful everyday, lets strive little more to be a kind person everyday.