Somehow, monetary considerations seem to reign supreme with regard to motivations for most professions, including the medical profession.
Of course, you or your parents spent so much money, and so much time to get through these courses that, obviously, they should be able to recoup the expenses, and at the same time trying to serve the people, namely our patients.
You also have to be realistic that everyone needs money to survive, and not just barely, but you owe it to yourself to have a decent standard of living for yourself and to be respected in your profession. This should not preclude the fact that you owe your patients the best of your knowledge and skills to get them cured, and one should not put that aside.
Yet, accept as we may the reasoning behind all of these aforementioned statements, those of us of earlier generations still recall a gentler, older time when “service,” “integrity” and “altruism” were the bywords of most service professions. People were made whole and healthy without checking whether they could pay something in return.
Mostly, people gave a certain amount not dictated by rates. The world was much smaller then, but people really cared for people, beyond their physical health. For these seemingly extraneous factors were part of the health and well-being of a whole family, and their universe.
Nowadays, it is the latest gadgets, the trips abroad, the luxurious cars, the bigger TVs, the larger houses, that propel many to redirect energies from true service in line with the actual goal of their profession—to alleviate suffering and make lives of more helpless others a little better, to cure their ills.
Nowadays, more and more professionals, including medical professionals at that, exhibit shameless selfishness at placing mammon before God and duty, and even resort to dirty tricks to steal patients (equals money to them) and opportunities from others in the same profession.
Yes, it could all be due to the mores of these times, when the world we live in has become a global village, one that has opened up greater worlds and galaxies of possibilities, which can be positive. However, beware that this mindset puts a damper on the older, more stable values of “enough-ness.” How much material do we really need to be happy and to achieve some balance? Isn’t it enough, or more than enough, to be able to serve one’s fellowmen, to have three meals a day, to have good health and to have a good family?
For there will always be those who are lesser and greater than us, and there will always be challenges for us to do more, to acquire more. But, at the risk of what? Think about it.
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