Medicine Is Rotting From The Inside Out

A Noble Profession, Which is Not At All Noble for The Professional

Being a doctor in my past life at believably the best medical school (i.e., AIIMS, New Delhi) in a country considered the medical hub in the world, India, has given me quite an insight into the condition of doctors in the country and worldwide.

Here are my two cents on the matter.

Note: Any opinion mentioned here should be taken as an internal description from a man who was once very passionate about the field and not as an external commentary.

Pathetic Working Conditions

This one is a no-brainer. Doctors work unbelievable schedules. This is true, especially in India, where 48 hours at a go is only getting started. Of course, certain specialties are worse than others, with Obstetrics and Gynaecology being infamous for the most unrealistic clock hours.

A Doctor and Their Sleep Are Mere Acquaintances

This is particularly true in India.

This isn't good for both the physical and mental health. Mental health is also not helped by the booming patient load and the abusive behavior that trickles down from the consultant to the intern. This explains the incidence of mental health disorders and suicides among the fraternity. Also, recreational drug abuse among doctors is a given.

They Don't Follow Their Own Advice

Also, paradoxically, doctors become patients of lifestyle disorders such as hypertension and diabetes. This is because these god-awful schedules prevent the formation of constructive habits like working out and eating planned and measured meals.

Instead, you find doctors taking smoking breaks during shifts and drowning themselves in alcohol at the weekends or what remains of them.

Senior (Mis)Guidance

As we saw, all medicos are under considerable stress. And a large no.of senior doctors take it out on innocent juniors, harass them, and transmit the same through generations. This makes medicine one of the most toxic work environments to work in.

Over time, these overworked doctors begin to associate this hell of a lifestyle with their status and expect others to respect them because of it.

“We used to do so many cases in our time, without eating…”

The less a doctor sleeps, the more glorious their dedication is(supposedly).

In addition to harassing and overloading them, the seniors also take solace in bragging about this perceived glory to entrance exam-giving juniors instead of presenting an accurate picture of the lives in various departments(which are horrendous, to say the least). As a result, the misguided juniors keep on joining toxic departments and specialties and keep repeating the cycle.

Attacks On Doctors.

This horrible reality is peculiar to India.
Gruesome attacks on doctors, which are often fatal, are a very common occurrence here. All these years of hard work, dedication and a life of sacrifice, all ended by an unruly patient.

These attacks often stem from patient discontent due to administrative lapses, something that is beyond the clinician.

More painful is that the government remains silent on these attacks to appease the majority patient population. No action is taken. Moreover, if these attacks are protested, the government cracks down on doctors, as mentioned later.
Hopeless…

Why don't they protest?

One might wonder why the doctors settle for it. Why don't they protest? Well, the answer is manifold.

1. It is Not in Them Anymore.

Over generations, it has been long gone from the personality of medicos to group and stand against the system. This is because of the cutthroat competition between them that confers a lack of unity.

(This sharply contrasts with disciplines like software programming, where collaboration is the trick of the trade.)

Also, they are too afraid of losing their job, which is mostly a course obtained through toiling, and hence their status.

2. They Shouldn't?

Governments in different countries can invoke laws to stop doctors' protests on the pretext that they are delivering essential services.

In India, this law is called the Essential Services Maintenence Act(ESMA), and it has been invoked or threatened to be invoked to curb the few doctor protests that managed to get off without listening to the protesting doctors' demands.

3. A Doctor is Always Studying but Not All The Right Stuff

The most apparent oddity of the medical profession is that doctors spend much of their professional lives studying.

“Why protest, when I can stay back and read an extra chapter..?”

Moreover, this curse prevents them from having a life and also from reading other enriching stuff like philosophy and finance and evolving their ideology.

As mentioned earlier, every job is a course—this differs from other professions, such as software engineers, financial analysts, and graphic designers, where there is a freedom to choose and upgrade jobs. But, doctors are doomed to continue in the same course unless they have the unusual guts to change their course, i.e., prepare to retake the entrance examination. This makes the sunk cost fallacy very high.

Also, this enormous amount of study is managed between the already impossible working hours. Imagine…

So Why Don't They Leave Medicine?

Gradually, even if a medico does not become toxic, they lose the drive to imagine better circumstances for themselves.

Also, as mentioned earlier, medical students and doctors don't have the time or energy to consider pursuing other careers.

The maximum they can think of is coaching classes in the name of 'entrepreneurship.'

In the name of content creation, they will start a YouTube channel or a podcast discussing entrance exams, ranks, and coaching classes, contributing to the same cycle of toxicity and misguidance.

That’s my honest take on the matter. What are your thoughts on it? Let me know in the comments below.