Physician Heal Thyself

Rural internship programmes are meant to give medical students clinical learning experience in the rural community. In fact interns visit Primary Health Centres (PHCs) only to show their faces to the medical officer, and then push off to the local teashop to discuss ways to escape work.

My colleague and I stopped at the local teashop for a tea and a smoke before moving on to the out-patient department of the PHC. We were sitting there when a boy came in with his parents. He complained of a reduced appetite and abdominal pain. All three worked as rag pickers. The boy smoked 20-25 bidis daily, and also chewed gutkha. He was 11 years old. A clinical examination suggested anaemia. He was very weak.

I started sternly counselling him on the hazards of smoking and tobacco, only to read his face and judge that he was not interested in our lecture. When my colleague scolded him he laughed and replied, “Sir, I saw you smoking at the tea stall. If smoking is hazardous, why don’t you stop it first?”

When I see doctors smoking in public places, that little boy’s image comes to my mind. We are committing a crime by assisting so many cancer-related deaths in the community. Being doctors, at least we should think: “Teaching is best done by setting an example.”