I talked about choices we get in our life and how they shape us into who we are. In order to make the right choices, there are many skills we as humans need to learn. I think one of the most important of those skills, that also help us to peacefully coexist, is empathy. Empathy helps us understand what the other person is going through.
Although empathy is important in every aspect of our life, but let’s narrow down the scope here a bit. Let’s talk about how empathy helps us make better decisions in dealing with other people in our professional life. Let’s see what lack of empathy makes us. It makes lawyers cold-hearted to his customers, a police officer abuses his powers, a soldier careless for the lives of people he protects, a businessman belittles his customers, a doctor dismissive to his patient’s complaints, a skilled worker overconfident and complacent in his skills and disregard his customers. Similarly, having empathy makes a lawyer truly understand the position of his customer, a police officer understand how people feel when he approaches them and make him able to protect them, a soldier tries to fight for peace rather than fight for fights, a businessman provides better customer care, a doctor truly understands the emotions and problems of his patients and a skilled worker keep working hard to craft his skill and keep his customers satisfied.
I went to the hospital as an attendant some time ago. It was couple months old baby and I accompanied her parents to the hospital. Nothing bad happened to them. Just sitting in the hospital got me thinking.
How would you feel if someone is able to make you feel helpless? weak? dependent on them while also making you feel inferior through their own egoistic nature? you feel as if you have nothing in your hand and you have to listen to whatever that person says to stay safe and that person also has a type of behavior that is condescending and snobbish.
Now how would you feel about making someone else feel like that? yes some of you might feel great but remember, you will feel great if you have a grudge against that person. Someone you want to make feel bad because you have to maybe settle your score with them. But I am talking about an already helpless and burdened person, poor maybe, weak in strength, weak in character or someone who is already burdened by the problems of his life. Will you feel good about that?
Hospitals are one of those few places that can make strongest of people feel helpless and useless. it breaks egos, breaks confidences, breaks spirits and weakens hearts. It’s like no matter how mentally strong you are, no matter how proud you are of your common sense, in times of distress when you have a loved one on the hospital bed, the doctor can literally tell you to jump up and down to cure that person and you would believe them and start jumping. you are ready to do anything. especially parents, they will give anything they have in the blink of an eye for their child. And you question very less, and trust absolutely, because we all have faith that the person in the scrubs will say and do what is best for your loved one. So it is easy to abuse this immense power. Very easy.
So whatever I say now, I will not be generalizing. If I say something about someone, that does not mean I am saying that about everyone.
We have heard often than not that doctors are very good at compartmentalizing. They can watch someone die in one room and then get on with another patient without carrying any toll on their mind and even carry on with their daily lives like nothing happened. However, I know as humans, things don’t go so perfectly. Doctors are some of the most mentally exhausted people as well. The deaths, the terrible experiences, the unsightly sights, they in fact do have a toll on them. But I am talking about another thing here.
Watching deaths, dealing with unusual cases every day makes doctors somewhat numb. No matter what case comes, they have dealt with worse. So not so bad cases become uninteresting. They don’t care what the relatives of the patient might be feeling. Again, not generalizing over here, but most of them do their job like a duty, not catering to the feelings and emotions of others. You know what I am saying. We have all seen such doctors that make us feel bad and stupid and helpless. The doctors reading this will second me as well.
On the other hand, same experiences in a hospital can make another doctor so soft and caring that he knows how to handle any case while keeping the attendants comfortable and making them feel calm and heard. They are just the loveliest people. They make you feel as if every ailment and every problem can be solved.
You might think I am trying to berate doctors. Criticize them. But that’s not what I am doing. In fact, I am trying to sympathize with them. Who wants to be a bad human? No body. We all want to be good. But our own individual situations make us someone what we don’t want to be. I think that being a doctor is very difficult. Obviously because of the long working hours and so much studying, sure. But mainly because it’s a field that makes it very difficult for them to be good. It has all the things that would push one to be careless and slip towards the dark. Doctors have immense respect; it can get to their head. Doctors have long working hours, it can cause mental fatigue and make them not able to control their behavior or decisions at times. Doctors have psychologically intense scenarios to deal with, it can make them emotionally unavailable at times because to deal with such situations, as a defense mechanism, they might choose to shut their emotionally vulnerable sides. Doctors are subject to violence from patients and attendants, it can scar them for life. Doctor’s sometimes have too much control in their hands, it can make them lose sight and take advantage and make mistakes, like all of us. They have tough lives managing both professional and personal commitments, when you have too much to balance you are more likely to make mistakes.
What I am saying is, it is no child’s play being a doctor let alone a kind and empathetic one. It takes so much effort, hard work, presence of mind and years upon years of self-evaluation and correction to be a good doctor. But we can’t compare them to normal people. We can’t say that normal people make mistakes, why can’t we make an exception sometimes for doctors? The thing is, not every human holds the life of other people in their hands every day the way doctors do. They have so much responsibility at their hands. Of course they will learn along the way, and make mistakes, and get better. I just can’t say this that alright you can be rude to that patient because you did a whole 36 hour shift and are mentally exhausted. No we can’t say that. You have to treat that patient with the same rigor and kindness because that is what this job demands. But know this, nothing goes unnoticed. You will eventually be rewarded. Personally, I have noticed that doctors are some of the highly respected people out there, especially after COVID. So yes, I salute your efforts.
To be true your duty, you have to keep a high standard of working. I think this quote really sums things up neatly:
“With great power, comes great responsibility”
To all the doctors or aspiring doctors out there, please choose kindness every day. It will drain you, it will tire you, it will take immense strength, immense control and unbelievable virtue of heart to stay calm in such situations and to keep the patients and their loved one’s calm and make them your number one priority, but you must do that to be better than those who do not. And to help those in need and those who depend on you.
And I will say all this again for all the people in the medical field. Whether you are a doctor, a medical student, a nurse, technicians, the management people, front desk officers, therapists, anyone from the medical fraternity, anyone who is involved in healing human life.
