Thanksgiving- Gratitude towards Patients

Another big festival coming up and that is nothing but Thanksgiving! You all might be gearing up for some special Thanksgiving this year, isn’t it? Thanksgiving day is primarily celebrated as a tradition to express our gratitude to the people who have helped us in some or the other way. Gifting someone as a gesture of gratitude makes them feel that they are important to you. These people might include our family members, friend circle, relatives or maybe a stranger as well. So whom are you all going to express your gratitude to?

Image credits- pexels.com

This year, I would like to celebrate Thanksgiving by expressing gratitude to the patients. Sounds a little weird right? What have patients done for us? But it isn’t so strange. Since start of the med-school try to remember our very first teacher. Not a professor teacher but because of whom we understood bones and muscles in our body. That was a human cadaver!! And throughout our journey in med-school, we all had been treating humans. But most importantly we forget that these humans are the ones who helped us in being what we are now. These humans are our patients. Why do they deserve gratitude? I would like to share with you all everything what I learned from them and why should Thanksgiving be celebrated with them-

1. A Faithful Attitude

Patients are the one who always have faith in the people who treat them, who care for them and who always be besides them despite of any difficulties. They teach us one of the most important lesson that we all should have faith in the people who are working towards us, who are working to make our life a success. If I own a company and I do not have faith in my own employees, I will never be able to trust them despite of their efforts and even they will never be happy working here. So having a faithful and trustworthy attitude helps us live a happy and successful life and builds truthful connections amongst each other.

2. Believe the Almighty

We do tons of efforts each day to earn out bread. From a small kid who is praying for his exam results to be good to an elderly who is praying for his family to always be healthy and wealthy, we all believe in the divine power of Almighty who makes the things better for us. A patient despite of the smallest injury has true prayers for his healing. Someone has rightly said-

“Hospitals have heard more prayers than a temple.”

For every work we do, if we believe in God, somewhere our positive energy increases and creates faith of everything being perfectly alright.

3. Have Endless Hopes

Even if a patient is in his deathbed, still somewhere he always has hopes that there are chances of him recovering and getting back on his toes. I remember a year ago when I was in neurophysiotherapy department, a spinal cord injury patient who had no sensations and no muscle power below his neck (quadriparesis) told me, “Ma’am I want to live, I want to run, cycle, go for treks again. I want to fulfill my parents’ dreams” and today he is walking and running independently. Patients teach us, despite of the most difficult situations in our lives, we must always hope for the best.

Photo by Marcelo Issa from pexels.com

4. Will to Fight !

It is never just the medicines or physiotherapy or any means of external care that works for patients, but the patient’s will to fight and get back on their own feet actually heals them faster.

Work like a Donkey for a while, and then live your entire life like a Lion!

When I see how these patients exercise so hard and never give up on themselves, it literally motivates me to do every possible effort inorder to achieve my goals in life. They are the one whom I seek inspiration from.

Photo by Victor Freitas from pexels.com

5. High Tolerance to Pain

Pain is subjective. We all have our own painful experiences. But our efforts and attitude towards pain is what helps us come out of it. For a small kid, losing a toy is pain and for an adult financial crisis, debt is pain. But what do we do about it? Simply keep cribbing rather than finding solution, isn’t it?

When you feel that your problems are the worst on this planet, talk to an athlete who is now an amputee!

The moment you realize what someone else is facing, you will start feeling that your problems are not even a tiny speck in this world. We all have difficulties in our lives but how we fight with them and how we tolerate pain of our issues makes all the difference.

So, I hope now you all agree why did I suggest to express our gesture of gratitude towards patients this Thanksgiving. Give it a try! Look around and you will realize that there are many things, many people and different creatures around you from whom you can learn a lot indirectly. They do deserve a ‘Thanksgiving’.