Be different
“We owe it to the Filipino people.”
I don’t know who said it first, not even if it’s an original quote, or just an often-repeated phrase used in political campaigns. This was the reverberating thought that settled upon hearing former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban during the impeachment proceedings. Is justice being served to the people? This somehow led me to remember another conversation with a high-ranking official, colleague, and friend, when we spoke about the difficulties of navigating the various challenges that we faced as a nation, and what could be a possible solution. She looked at me and said a one-liner that, while simple, spoke volumes. “Do your job well.”
Have we?
What does it take to remember that we need to do our best? We may all have fallen short. While it’s easy enough to point a finger, have we included ourselves in the equation? A beloved pillar in our medical community summed it up when I asked how, as a country, we seem to be unable to rise from it all. His reply, “At my age—he was then nearing 90—I have seen and experienced it all. It’s leadership.”
Choosing to stay in my area of expertise, I came across a review article in the American Journal of Medicine on the traits of great physicians. How can we be great at our job instead of just being good? Poring over it served to revive the idealism that still remains to be embedded in my core despite the regular onslaught of outward events that constantly plague me as I go about my responsibilities. It is my hope that what is to follow becomes a point of reflection not only for the medical profession but also for all the other disciplines.
Every kind of work requires a certain level of expertise and skill. After having gone through the necessary training as a physician, it is expected that he arrives at the most likely diagnosis for a patient after obtaining a full history and doing a thorough physical examination in order to guide his subsequent management. This would be a task that is often repeated to provide a cure or stabilize a condition as the course of a disease may sometimes be unpredictable. In going through this process, there are many people involved, aside from the patient, who are depending on you not only for answers, clarity, and guidance but most of all, the needed empathy. Early in practice, the very thing that kept us in line was to try to envision ourselves as the patient rather than the doctor. If the roles were reversed, how would we feel about receiving less than favorable news? From experience, patients do not appreciate highfalutin medical terms. What they want to know in the simplest words is the diagnosis, if a cure is available, and the benefits and disadvantages if treatment is possible or needed, the cost, and the prognosis or whether it could impact their way of living. This is the basic template that a physician uses to be able to communicate his proposed management. But what sets another physician apart from the other besides capability and experience?
In that article, the main message for me was the ability to go the extra mile. The enormity of being the person people would look to for cure and comfort places any doctor in a very powerful position. The author had several tips. Beyond what is expected of us, he urged us to have the mindset of a detective who always aims to dig deep when things do not seem to add up, or gut instinct tells us otherwise, constantly using all our five senses and skills, being aware of both verbal and nonverbal clues to be able to engage in active listening, paying keen attention to detail, being truly empathetic, and taking care of oneself to function optimally. As anyone knows, doctor or not, adequate rest, such as a full night’s sleep, somehow helps in changing one’s perspective.
What he wrote isn’t something new, but rather a reminder of what we should always try to be. We all have a role to play no matter what station in life we are in. In striving to be the best in our chosen fields, we can be that leader who takes responsibilities and accountabilities seriously, and in so doing, directly or indirectly influence and inspire people to work to change things for the better.
We owe it to our fellow Filipinos.
timgim_67@yahoo.com
