escape

Posted by james (manila, Philippines) on 14 November 2007 in Abstract & Conceptual.

should i run away?

doing business seems not like the very best thing that i want to do....

dont even know when i will be able to go back to medicine... i love med. and i miss it so much.

i hanged my blazer high on the wall, beholding and wishing that one day i will soon be able to go back to this noble profession....

it is funny that whenever i hear my dear friends complaining how toxic their every three days duty are and how much they hate the stupid hierachy system existing inside the hospital.... i envy them.

becoming a physician in the philippines is a sad thing. By the time one finished from medical school, he or she is already 26 years old, then, 1 year of internship, 4 more years of residency training, and 3 years of fellowship, in order to make one a cardiologist.... sigh! and how much do they earn? 12000 pesos for the resident doctors? you say,"what!" well, it is real.

you cannot blame the good doctors who opted to become nurse in other country where they earn 50 us dollars per hour.

they too need to get married and raise a family..... and to make through the day.

***

people are changing.

and

one day, i will change also. The so-much-so idealistic james will one day be substituted by a more realistic one... or a pure realistic one, who might evaluate his tummy more than his heart.

over a nice dinner with a good friend (one of the most pleasurable thing for me), he told me that he might not chose to become a resident doctor or even a consultant in PGH (Philippine General Hospital). PGH is a government hospital.... and it is where the poor people go. By rationale, becoming a physician in PGH is not a very wise thing to do. Getting in touch "Only" with the lower social rank people is not a very wise thing to do. Not just because they cannot even afford to pay you the consultation fee. Like all trades, medicine has no exception. We all need connections if you want to make money... not to get really wealthy, but to live a life befitting a physician.

should a doctor dress in dirty rags with falling ceiling in his clinic just to make him a more noble physician than the rest?

in medical ethics, we do not call it salary or wages per consultation. Somehow i think the doctors are smart, they use the term Honoranium refering to the money they recieved from the patients.

this is euphimism.

i must say sorry to dr. moreno, because despite his lengthy explanation, i can still not see the most root difference between salary and honoranium.

is there anything honorable in it.... when a patient spread open his hand and say to you that he has no money.... you are a doctor and therefore you must treat me. It will utterly drive you mad, when you see that he is even using a better cellphone than the one you have.

my good friend is planning his way to makati medical center where he will be able to get in touch with people of higher social ranks, who are able to pay you and sometimes, even handsomely when you have done a really good surgical procedures.

***

But what will makes us happy indeed?

where will our uttermost joy to be found?

is it in the money we gathered? a good and comfortable life?

is it in the lives that we have changes? the poor hands that we have lifted?

is it in merely in the solving of the puzzle when confronted with baffling signs and symptoms?

***

we are all in the process of running.

either way, whether a running to or running from, we all must move forth.

"time is short!" proclaimed the Chieftain of the Orc clan.

***

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

***

M-Delayed M.D. james lee