Dr M K Mam
Doctor’s day in India was established by the Government of India in 1991 to be recognized and celebrated every year on 1st of July as National Doctors day. It is celebrated every year on July 1 all over India to honour and pay tribute to the legendary physician and the second Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy.Dr Roy was born on July 1, 1882 and died on the same date in 1962 at the age of 80 years, thus the day commemorates his birth and death anniversary. Dr Roy was honoured with the country’s highest Indian civilian award, Bharat Ratna on February 4, 1961.
Over the years, there has been a remarkable improvements in the medical field in our country and July 1 is observed to pay a tribute to all the doctors, physicians, health experts in our country for their immense and selfless contribution made towards all this advancements. The day is observed to raise awareness in common people about the role, importance and responsibilities of doctors in our daily lives especially in saving the lives of the people by prevention, by giving proper treatment in the form of medicines or an operation.It is also dedicated to promote medical professionals to come closer and follow the responsibilities of their profession very dedicatedly.On this day lot of programmes and activities like free medical check-up camps, free blood test- random blood sugar test, ECG etc are organised by various health organisations to assess the health status and to make the people about aware the priceless role of doctors in everyone lives.
The day gives an opportunity when people show respect for entire professional doctors who have made their great efforts in saving the life of patients and acknowledge their commitment and dedication towards the society. On this day patients greet their doctors by sending greeting cards, appreciation cards,greeting messages through the emails or WhatsApp etc . As a token of appreciation, some of the patients also give them a bunch of flowers or a bouquet.
Celebration is fine, but more than that, the day certainly gives us the doctor fraternity an opportunity to reassess and evaluate our performance and usefulness to the society. It certainly gives an opportunity to introspect and think about our role in the society. Are we fulfilling the social obligations? Are we coming up to their expectations? What we are today is of course because of our hard work and efforts and nobody can question that, however all this could not have been possible without the support and the help from the society. The society has certainly contributed a lot in making us and all of us are well aware of that. We all owe to it and we just cannot forget that. Doctor’s profession has been a noble one and the doctor has been known to be second God, but somehow or other the things have changed to the worse over the years. It is true that the doctor does not command the same respect which he used to command in earlier times.There has been erosion of the trust in doctor patient relationship and I feel we the doctors are partly if not fully responsible for it.There is a growing level of mistrust among the public for the medical profession as one hears of complaints, misconduct, unethical practices and then the legal suits against the doctors. There also has been an increase in the incidences of conflict between doctors and patients or their attendants. It is a fact that there have been over all degradation of moral values and the principles in the society in general. The doctor being part of the same society, it is hard to think that he could have escaped from it.In recent past, lot of talk has also been going on in the community and the media about the allegations of corruption- practice of cuts and commissions in the medical profession with an unholy nexus between pharmaceutical, surgical implant companies and the doctors. There are allegations that some of the doctors recommend unnecessary tests and surgeries, thus putting an enormous financial burden on the patient.Somehow or other there has also been commercialization of the medical education and the profession to a large extent.
It is also known that doctors in our country are facing many problems. Inadequate and poor healthcare infrastructure that is not enough to meet the needs of the population is one of the major problems faced in India Government hospitals and doctors do not even have the basic facilities like adequate human resources, beds, essential drugs, equipment, diagnostic and treatment facilities.We have over all deficiency of health care providers that includes doctors as well and this deficiency is severe in rural areas. Demand far exceeds the capacity as the patient load is heavy and facilities are limited and not appropriate. Somehow or other health care has not been on the top of the priority of the Governments and the allocation of funds towards health sector is very low in our country. Then the gravest problem is that our growing population that means a heavy patient load andmajority of them living below the poverty line. In spite of all these odds and the stresses, we have lot many committed and dedicated doctors who are working selfless lyand doing a real good work. It is a fact that society is aware of suchdedicated doctors and it does recognize them. But there are also black sheep in the doctor fraternity and it is but for their misdeeds that the profession as a whole is put to shame. Before pointing finger at others, it is appropriate that we honestly look within ourselves, do an introspection and try to find why, where, when, how and what has gone wrong and then do the necessary corrections.
To summarize, there is an utmost need to introspect, assess and evaluate ourselves as regards how useful and relevant we are to the society and then have required necessary measures. Government must have health on the top in the priority list and more of funds have to be allocated for health care.We have to have more doctors and improve our health care infrastructure.We need to inculcate professionalism, medical ethics and communication skills in our medical graduates and doctor, and this has to be part of medical training programmes.
(The author is formerly, Vice Principal, Prof. & Head of Orthopaedics, CMC Ludhiana and President, North Zone of Indian Orthopaedic Association)
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