~I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth, I know not where~

Though, these lines are from one of my favourite poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, this post isn’t about a newfound friendship.

Unfortunately, it’s very literal and I’m shooting an arrow with this brutal truth but I know not if it’ll fall on deaf ears.

Back with another post and this one is particularly close to my heart.

The incessant doctor bashing has reached a really sorry state and it just seems to be getting worse.

Gone are the days when the worst thing we’d face was an ungrateful patient who would bad mouth us but now they might actually harm us, physically.

Not to mention, the emotional torture that all those physically abused doctors must have gone through.

And these are the doctors who have tried their hardest to save your loved one. They have done their best, and probably are feeling guilty enough that they let one life slip through their fingers. They’ll probably be haunted by that case and blame themselves partly, indefinitely.

The first time I witnessed a death was in internship, and it shattered me.
Even though the patient had hardly any hope when he was wheeled into casualty, it was still death. A once living breathing human being, now just a corpse.

It is terrifying. And no matter what people think that we’re so jaded and a death doesn’t affect us anymore, it very much does.

So think twice before harming a doctor. Infact, before harming anyone.

Sometimes I think society is regressing.
With this caveman, man kill man attitude, it’s worrying, what the world is turning out to be.

Which civilised human being would brutally beat up another?

And the scariest part is that no one seems to care.

It’s like the entire medical fraternity is talking to a wall. It is only medical students and doctors who are talking about this unjust reality. The rest of society either isn’t bothered or is just sitting on the fence waiting to see what happens next.

It is pathetic. And a really sorry state.

The funny part is that the same doctors who are saying they wish they didn’t take medicine because atleast they’d be safe from physical harm, actually wouldn’t trade medicine for the world.

The joy of healing is just something else. And putting yourself out there is something that’s been drilled into us and is a part of us.

I don’t think anyone of us would turn our backs on our profession and change.
Atleast that’s something that you can’t steal from us. Our fraternity and our love for our work and our patients.

Humorously, (or not so) this reminds me of an Akbar and Birbal story, where all the servants were terrified to tell the king that his favourite parrot had died because he would be angry and possibly execute the bearer of the bad news, and it was finally Birbal who outsmarted Akbar by just telling him that his parrot wasn’t talking or eating and had the king see for himself and exclaim that his bird was dead.

Has our society regressed so much that we need to resort to such tactics to break bad news?

Many doctors today are discouraging their children from doing medicine because of this current scenario.

I for one will not discourage my children because I wouldn’t want to influence their choice in any way. But I definitely would be up late worrying for them on night duties and would breathe a sigh of relief to see them safe the next day.

Writing this post is actually very depressing because it’s not going to protect a fellow doctor from future harm by an angry mob of relatives, it’ll probably just become one of those articles on the subject which is read and forgotten.

But atleast it’s another post reminding you how unjustifiable this behaviour is and how it should stop.

If not anything, atleast stand by us, in this fight for justice. We aren’t going on a strike, we wouldn’t do that to our patients. All we request is some compassion and care because we too after all are mere humans, humans who are losing their faith in society slowly but surely.

Please help your doctors, help you.