No1 Quintessence of A Physician

No1 Quintessence of A Physician

The absurdity of doctor as a profession always fascinates me when I was little. You are sick; you go to doctors; you wait patiently (maybe that is where the word “patient” come form) with agony, thinking when is it ever going to start? And when they do see you, they cut you, bleed you, and pierce you; you start to think: when is this torment ever going to end? At end of the day, you pay them and thank them for the pain with a kindness on your face, hoping you will never see them again. Yes, they may occasionally spare you a candy, hoping you will stay quite the next time you go to their clinic.

In 1998, Patch Adams, the movie or at least the person portrayed in movie, change my view about doctors completely.

Dr. Patch Adams inspired me the kind of person I want to be. He has passion, guts, kindness, and persistent strife to the best of his ability to attend to patient’s comfort. Medicine to him is not just statistics, hierarchy, and mechanical routine. Dr. Patch Adams believed in “humanistic medicine” − more than a sense of hope, but a sense of dignity and caring that I would want for my families in hospital when they are ill.

By masking himself as clown and entertain the patients, he believes it is one of the best ways to serve his patients. As the Dr. Patch Adams explained in his speeches:
“(Deep down) You can say that is fake performance because you are really hurting; so what is true in the formula I am talking about is the intention that is true, and performance is serving the intention.”

But I also believe that there are countless true passionate doctors out there who serve tirelessly with mask and share the same do-good-intention, in surgery, in anesthesia, in oncology, and even in abortion and euthanasia. They too, just in different kind of disguise, giving fake performance to hide the fact they are hurting; and the fact they are powerless, frustrated and helpless in battling against ethical dilemma, disease and futility of death and staggering cut of funding, regardless of their gender, age and their level of obstinacy. Not one doctor who is not compassionate and kind, I genuinely believe, is willing to go through the grueling years of medical schooling and hospital training, starting with painstaking gamsat or umat and interview.

But good intention without an objective is futile. I believe to be a doctor you need more than just do-good-intention, ambition, obligation, commitment; a doctor above all others need to have an intrinsic passion and intuitions to serve patient as you would like how your families to be served, because personalities and abilities alone do not provide a doctors’ explanation to your own existence and motivation. The qualities mentioned above are merely the basic attributes of doctor to facilitate them to do a proper job and in fact to do any other job, which coming even with practice and training: social worker with good intention, politician with ambition; police with obligation; and even thief with commitment (if you think it is a job). An answer to explain the rationality of doctors’ role is of importance and greatly needed before any one who wish eagerly to become one.

See, we all will die one day; and doctors are not curing-death-almighty; and all death is inevitable and imminent. So why doctors? Why would I even want to become one?

This can only be explained by this code: how we perceive we are treated in the hospital is really something special; something that I would genuinely like to offer to future patients, as of what I would like to offer to my family, with a fake smile on my face and a true intention. This is my No.1 quintessence of physician.