A thought flew past me as I was sitting through a lavish wedding dinner in a posh establishment recently. A doctor in the infant years of his career was proudly showcasing his catch to the world to ogle. Set with the high-brow society setting and the ambience to match, we, the mortals were given a sneak peek into the lives and times of the groom and bride through a montage of a roll of photos that was rolling during the function. We gathered that the respective families went through thick and thin, scaling the waves of obstacles to attain the comfort that they had acquired in life.
Bordering on stereotyping and over-generalisation, it is probably going to be a ‘no-no’ to the above. Living in comfortable times deprived of the valuable lessons from the School of Hard Knocks of Life and acquisition of a degree through the back door means would hamper his tenacity to face the realm of the unknown.
I envisage the groom, ten years down the line, abandoning the real call of the profession to serve the needy of medical attention who are invariably the ones least deep-pocketed, to venture to something less demanding with better remunerations, like rubbing shoulders with bankers and financiers. At least their clients do not come with tales of melancholia and hopelessness but with tall stories of the impossible of pots of golds and pink unicorns.
Well and dandy, all these...
But how is a measly paid medical officer in the notoriously underpaid system of Malaysian civil service going to sustain the same type of lifestyle? Is he still going to be that dedicated doctor who will weather all kinds of resistance to put wellbeing above everything else as he chose the profession, not for the glamour but the calling? Is he going through grind those hard times dealing with difficult cases in the wee hours of the morning? Is he going to pacify his anger nerves as he treats drunks with avoidable wounds? Is he going to tell himself that it is a calling to be a physician as he slogs through the long New Year weekend as the rest of the city embroil in stuporous revelry of the Season? Will he think that his good deeds would earn plus points for his afterlife or that the divine forces throw him a bone to lead a comfortable family life? As the demands for modern living becomes more expensive, is he going to sacrifice the comforts of his early life for an epicurean one?
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| At a Klinik Desa, the reality. |
Now, whose fault is this? Are poverty and deprivation the only way to strengthen the mettle of Man? Will the comforts of life only create snowflakes much like how a sterile environment lowers one’s immunity guard?
Should medical vocation be reserved for those with aptitude only or to those with undying zest to serve despite adversities? Are these mere statements of assumptions?
I envisage the groom, ten years down the line, abandoning the real call of the profession to serve the needy of medical attention who are invariably the ones least deep-pocketed, to venture to something less demanding with better remunerations, like rubbing shoulders with bankers and financiers. At least their clients do not come with tales of melancholia and hopelessness but with tall stories of the impossible of pots of golds and pink unicorns. 
