Doctors Leaving - 2

Blog Reminder No 2 - write and save in a Notepad before publishing. You might lose everything you've typed.

Continuing from before: My doctor friends are disillusioned with their profession. Both work in the govt hospital, which means long hours and low pay. Long hours means 16 hour days and sometimes overnight, and low pay means under RM 3000 each. For people in their 30's.

Let's start from the beginning. Doctors are the smartest of the smartest in school. Most of you who read this blog have no chance of qualifying to study it. These are straight A students - 8-10 A's in SPM and 4-5 A's in STPM. Prefects, presidents of school associations, you name it. Meaning these are top achievers, who are the best in whatever they did. So.. Fast forward 10 years - these friends are barely starting on their lives and the rest of us (less impressive performers in school) are far far ahead. So for all they have worked for, by the standard measure of achievement that society uses on us today (ie what house/ car/salary/lifestyle do you have), they are now at the bottom rung. Sure, one day they might come to be - what, 10 years from now? How do you ask top achievers to accept that?

The government has asked doctors to be grateful citizens. Doctors were given the opportunity to do medicine (btw, did I mention full scholarship at local Uni?). So doctors should return to serve society. And besides, doctors have a responsibility to put their service above self, which means that their medical practice of serving people should be above their desire for status, lifestyle and wealth.

So were those comments made meant to be a reprimand, an advice or a morale booster? Not at all convincing, I am afraid.

Firstly, for any self respecting profession and not just doctors, we must always put our service first - which means serve the customer the best we can. Lawyers, accountants and journalists - everyone - must put their best to the people we serve. The customers are our patients, the results are the lives helped or saved.

Secondly, doctors do not need to be THAT grateful. They were not given their free ride (not all of them, anyway). They worked hard for it. It was their own determination and commitment. They earned it. And when you earn something, you have a right to spend it, flaunt it and enjoy it. You should only be grateful when you were done a good deed you did not earn or deserve.

There are other dissatisfactions, of course, including poor work ethics (you would be appalled by some of the things that happen behind the surgery rooms), smacks of favoritism and racism, jostling of position by who you know and not what you do. So to all newly jaded doctors out there, there is little professionalism in this profession. But that's a story I will tell in another blog.

So, coming back my 2 friends. They figure their lives will be better in another country. And how right they are. We all seek better things all the time, but mostly we move to greener pastures when our pastures are really sand dunes.

And you know what? They will probably be top specialists, researchers and professors when they go, where they're recognized for their merit and they can make a decent living for themselves, their children and future. And then our country will claim credit and say so-and-so was from Ipoh, Penang or Kuching. Yeah right.

Good luck, my 2 friends. And God bless the rest of us left behind without doctors.

Doctors leaving

My desire to start a blog was inspired by 2 doctor friends who have chosen to leave the country soon. I wanted to express my frustration somewhere but did not know where to start. I thought about writing to the media. I thought about sending a chain email (send this to 7 of your friends or your neighbour's dog will die). But I guess a blog will do - read at your will. Nobody's dog needs to die for my cause.

Anyway, last night at a housewarming party, I came to know that 2 specialist doctor friends (one anaesthetist and one physician) - married to each other, Indian, 34 and 30 - have chosen to leave Malaysia one day. Much words were spoken but the reality is this - as a country, we are not doing enough to keep them.

Open for Business

OK, so this is how it starts.

Blog note reminder: Next time, get inspired by a good blog name before starting out. 15 minutes is not enough to think up a good name.

Like some blogs, I should choose to be anonymous. However, like all good blogs, the easiest way to start having readers is to tell your friends. I won't attempt to keep it a secret, but I will use fictional names.

So what's with the name? For the uninitiated, a Pensieve is a stone basin, covered in mystic runes, with a liquid or gas within. A witch or wizard can extract his or her own memories and place them in the Pensieve, especially to relieve the mind when it becomes too flooded with information. Anyone can examine the memories in the Pensieve, which also allows viewers to fully immerse themselves in the memories stored within, much like a magical form of virtual reality. OK, this object came out of a Harry Potter book. Don't laugh.. you may not find it in any self-respected dictionary but you can find its full reference in wikipedia.org.

As for Potty, sometimes it means crazy, whacko or eccentric. But I used it because it refers to an object which we use everyday. Much like a Pensieve, it is where we dispose of immaterial articles after we have soaked up the vital bits. Now this is an interesting read in wikipedia.org, which a nice picture reference too. Look it up :)

So... Potty Pensieve is now open for business.