ON JOINING THE MEDICAL COLLEGE

ON JOINING THE MEDICAL COLLEGE
[An address to the new entrants to the medical course.]

A talk delivered on 27 September 2010, the first day of the session, to students of the Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, NH – 24, Anwarpur, Hapur Taluk, Ghaziabad District, UP - 245304, by


DR. M.C. GUPTA
Advocate & MEDICO-LEGAL CONSULTANT

MBBS [AIIMS]
MD, Medicine, [AIIMS]
MPH [San Carlos Univ., Guatemala, Central America]
Post-Doctoral Fellow [United Nations Univ.]
LL.B. [Delhi Univ.]
LL.M. [Kurukshetra Univ.]
Member, Indian Law Institute
Member, Supreme Court Bar Association
Medico-legal Consultant: Apex Insurance Consultant Ltd

Formerly:
Professor & Dean, National Institute of Health & Family Welfare
Additional Professor, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
[e-mail]
Ph: 09999333801


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My dear young friends,

It gives me immense pleasure to meet you today. This is a day of destination for you. Today you embark upon a journey that will be tough, demanding and alternately punishing and rewarding. You will get bouquets as well as brickbats.
As I face you today, I am taken back to the day 51 years ago, August 1, 1959 to be precise, when I joined the MBBS course at the All India Institute of Medical sciences, New Delhi. During these 51 years, a lot has changed and I have gained a lot of knowledge and experiences about medicine, about the medical profession and about those whom the profession serves. I would share some of the knowledge and experiences with you. I would also like to hear from you your concerns, worries, doubts and queries. I will present the knowledge and experiences to you in the form of clear messages so that you and I do not lose ourselves in general platitudes.

1—A doctor should try to alleviate suffering—You, as doctors, will be expected to help those who are suffering. The society expects that. We owe it to ourselves to live up to the expectations of the society. A doctor who is not compassionate to a suffering human being may be a great researcher or a Nobel laureate or a great surgeon, but he cannot earn full respect of the society if he has no feeling of kindness and sympathy for others. Gandhi’s pet bhajan was:

Vaishnav jan te tene re kahiye……..
I might very well reword it as: Doctor jan te tene re kahiye……..
(Only he deserves to be called a doctor who understands others’ pain.)

This is the first message I would like to give you. I hope you remember it throughout your life.

2—A doctor should maintain his dignity—This has two aspects, each of them pretty important:

ONE—A doctor should always be sober in his approach to others. Too gaudy or too conspicuous behaviour, whether exhibited through dress, talk or indulgence in smoking, alcohol or drugs ill fits a doctor.

TWO—Having given due attention to the above, a doctor must maintain professional dignity by not being too servile and by not stooping below a certain level when others try to browbeat him or take undue advantage of him or cause injustice to him. Fifty years ago, my teachers did not give me this advice. Maybe it was not needed in those days as much as it is needed now. Instances of assault against doctors are increasing. The modalities of diagnosis and treatment are becoming more and more complex and costly but the society, spurred on by the politicians, expect doctors to provide free treatment in emergency. While it is the basic moral duty of doctors to attend to a patient in an emergency and save life and mitigate suffering, it has to be linked to the basic duty of the society and the government to compensate them for such services. This is the main objection of doctors to the recent Clinical Establishments Act, 2010, which casts a legal duty upon doctors and nursing homes etc. to provide treatment to patients in an emergency without spelling out who will compensate for such services in what manner. I can say this as a lawyer that such compulsion is unjust and unfair.
The message I want to convey is that while doctors must maintain their professional dignity by behaving in a sober manner, they must not let the dignity of their profession be undermined by succumbing to injustice meekly. Gandhiji was meek and modest but stood solidly against injustice.

3—A doctor should look beyond medicine—This is a message the importance of which will dawn upon many of you after many years or even decades. Medicine is a profession but it is not everything. There is much more than medicine both in academic, personal and social life.

As regards academic life, you should always welcome, even seek out, opportunities in fields other than purely medical. These may be anything that suits your taste: health management, literature, information technology, economics, psychology, social sciences (including political science and law). By pursuing other academic interests, interdisciplinary growth gets encouraged and one attains fuller potential as a man of letters.

As regards personal life, you will be married one day. You should never forget, especially the males, that it is not proper to get so much overwhelmed by the call of the medical profession as to ignore the family. Many doctors do that. They regret it when it is too late. Remember: spouse and children come before the profession and the society, in a balanced manner, of course.

As regards social life, please remember that man is not an island. Human beings are social animals. We must be alive to the needs and the responsibilities towards society. A doctor need not shy away from taking part in social or even political activities. However, while doing so, he must remember the calling of his profession to remain sober and modest and sincere in his dealings.

4—A doctor must maintain academic excellence—A doctor is respected not for his white coat but for what his white coat represents—medical knowledge. A white coat is worn by ward boys and laboratory workers also. That white coat is not exactly the same as a doctor’s. The more knowledge a doctor has, the more respect he gets.

5—A doctor must be honest—Doctors lament now-a-days that the respect for the medical profession has gone down. That is true. Reasons are many. But one reason is that doctors have become more commercial and greedy in their approach. I don’t mind if a doctor is greedy or money minded. Each of us has a right to choose our life style as long as it is not immoral or illegal. What is not acceptable is to indulge in unfair or objectionable or corrupt practices or to knowingly neglect one’s duties for the sake of money.

6—A doctor must abide by the code of medical ethics—In my days, the code was voluntary, in the nature of an oath. Now it has been put forth as law in the form of the “Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002”. I would strongly suggest that all of you should study these regulations even while you are MBBS students. They are available on the internet.
http://mciindia.org/know/rules/ethics.htm


I think the six messages given above should stand you in good stead for the next six decades. And then, sixty years later, maybe someone of you will tell a group of youngsters: “As I stand in front of you today, I am reminded of what a certain crackpot M C Gupta told our batch sixty years ago……..”!

I would be glad if some of you might like to share with me some of your own thoughts and concerns or ask any questions.

Thanks.


M C Gupta
27 September 2010