Modern medicine is
only couple of hundred years old. Prior to that it was traditional medicine
being used based on the local needs of the country. The oldest of them being
Indian ayurvedic system of medicine originating from atharveda. Unani,
Chinese, and Tibetan medicine probably are all off shoots of Ayurveda.
Doctors in India
The role of a doctor
is to remove the miseries and save the life of a person and that is one reason
most of us think that a medical doctor has been given designation equivalent to
that of God. But it has many other perspectives also.
A common man’s
perspective of God is a force that can do and undo anything, for whom nothing
is impossible, who is the final decision maker, whose decision cannot be
challenged, who can give an instantaneous relief, who can punish and reward and
he who overcomes miseries. He can also answer the unknown as he is supposed to
know everything. In Bhagwad Gita and other vedic texts, GOD is equated to
consciousness, a network of energized information, a force which cannot be
burnt by fire, wet by water, dried by air or cut by weapon; a force which is
omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient and still ever-pervading.
A trained qualified
medical doctor who has his understanding based on the mind, body and soul has
nearly the same characteristics. He overcome miseries, mystifies his presence
as soon as he touches the patient, gives immediate relief which starts at the
time he gives a healing touch to the patient, his decision often is considered
final and whose decisions are almost predictable to 100%.
God is the person on
whom one has blind belief and faith. At the time when a person is sick or in
acute emergency the same belief and faith is seen in doctors.
According to Deepak
Chopra in his book ‘How to Know God’ he has explained God of different levels.
According to him a God is a person from amongst the society with one step
higher level of consciousness. He describes, as per the Vedic text, seven
different levels of consciousness a person can posses and they are at the level
of fight & flight, reactive consciousness, restful alertness consciousness,
intuitive consciousness, creative consciousness, sacred consciousness and
unified consciousness. If we take this as the classification then even a ruler
of the society may be considered God by many people. But if you take universal
criteria then a person who has achieved sainthood, who sees the same
consciousness in everybody, treats individuals without caste, creed and
religion who overcome miseries of people irrespective of their age, status or
paying capacity is the GOD. Doctor fits into these criteria.
For him every patient
is the same and his job is to remove his or her miseries at that particular
moment. Probably, this is another reason why doctors have been considered God
at every level of perception and from every segment of the society.
Most people have fear
of death, fear of unknown, fear of loss and fear of disability. Whenever there
is an unknown fear they think of the God. A medical doctor is also remembered
whenever there is a health crisis.
Ayurvedic text
describes clearly chapters & chapters on the subject ‘how to predict
death’. It describes symptoms, which, if present, with certainty one can say
that this person is going to die in how many hours, days, months or years. That
level of prediction gives public a feeling that doctors are God because they
have seen doctors for thousands of years giving verdict that this person is not
going to survive after a particular period and that used to happen.
According to Bible
every work God does he does through his messenger. Medical doctors are the only
certified universal messenger of God in the society. Rest all become God for a
particular period, for a particular instance or a particular person.
Health is not mere
absence of disease but a state of physical, mental, social, spiritual,
environmental and financial well being. This definition fully was used by the
Eastern philosophy and Eastern pathies. The modern doctors, however, practice
more often an instant practice with emphasis on quick treatment, handling acute
emergencies and lifestyle illnesses. They hardly take mental and spiritual
health into consideration. That may be one reason why slowly people are
withdrawing the status of God from the doctors. They have started equating a
medical doctor with any other marketing profession.
Out of four purposes
of life: dharma, artha, kama & moksha,
dharma is the most important. The literal meaning of dharma is to hold. God is
the force with 100% dharma in his life. Dharma of a doctor is to treat and save
the life of a person at any cost. One recalls the movie Achanak where the
doctor saves the life of a person who has been sentenced to death and the day
he saves him the police officer takes him for hanging. The movie ends with a
message that a doctor has to do his dharma and police officer has to do
his.
At the time of
miseries, a doctor is treated as a healer. Nobody bothers whether the doctor
came from which religion, caste, race or whether the doctor is male, female or
from third gender. People do not bother about the ill habits or out of
profession activities of the doctor; they are only concerned about the fact
that doctor is a universal healer and overcomes the miseries of everybody who
approaches him. A doctor provides free treatment to those who cannot afford or
comes to an emergency ward without any money.
Putting doctors under
Consumer Protection Act is the biggest blunder done by the government. How can
one make God accountable? Can a child born blind at birth abuse or curse God
for making him blind.
I think all of us
should introspect and remember that doctor is the messenger of god born to
remove miseries of the sick individuals.
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