Doctors hold placards as they protest attacks of medics at various places during COVID-19 inspection rounds, in Prayagraj, April 2020. Photo: PTI.
A common reproach one gets on social media these days is for initiating debates about issues “not concerning us”. Like other professionals and citizens, I am part of several groups. Whenever I raise an issue discomforting enough to cause uneasiness, someone quickly points out, immediately seconded by several others, that we should not discuss issues that don’t concern us. You may find such resistance emerging from among decades-ago schoolmates, contemporary colleagues or members of scientific societies that you are part of.
An interesting debate happened in a society a few months ago when, disturbed at how poorly some countries were handling COVID-19, with respect to the pandemic as well as economic ruin, a well-respected Scottish surgeon posted a political message. The backlash was immediate. Many wrote that they supported his political beliefs but also opposed his decision to air such views on an ‘apolitical’ forum. However, when he persevered, even digging out the society’s objectives – “fostering debates on controversial policies affecting health care”, “promotion of global health”, “ethics”, “economy”, what do you think happened?
He was cancelled. Nobody replies to his posts anymore. Since the society is quite particular about its privacy, I am withholding names.
Some of you with a habit of raising tough questions must have faced a similar response, even from progressives. I have been cancelled so many times that individual experiences no longer count. The last time was just a few days ago, when the admin of a newly created WhatsApp group asked members to “post about yourself”. This request in itself was harmless, and I was just going to write a few words about myself, but then I saw the admin’s next message: “Post about yourself within the next 24 hours or you will be removed.” This deadline stuff really put me off and I was removed before I could protest, thankfully: I had no intention to be part of any group that has no patience or respect for a little divergence.
Then again, I digress. Protesting doctors is an uncommon sight. Healthcare is an essential service, so irrespective of laws for the maintenance of essential services, doctors are committed to continue working – so that even when protests take the form of strikes, emergency services are available.
There can be several reasons to protest. Salary issues are foremost, accompanied by violence against doctors, harassment by seniors, inadequate working conditions, late declaration of results – in fact, the list can be long. If strikes appear too radical, we resort to milder forms like ‘black badges’. However, the protests are always about medical causes. In the more than three decades of my professional career, I do not recall any non-medical protests.
Overall, doctors are less inclined to protest. Perhaps it is the long-drawn process of education that snuffs out youthful hot-bloodedness, maybe the awareness of adverse impact on patient care, a general tendency to maintain the status quo, or getting-used-to-a-comfortable-lifestyle kind of wisdom. Like upper-middle-class members of our society, we also seem to have perfected this art of maintaining glorious unconcernedness, unless of course the issue affects us directly.
I know of very few doctors who took part in more recent protests. Those who did had interesting tales to tell. An ENT surgeon told me how he was impressed by the simplistic but grounded logic of a 94-year-old farmer who had come to him for some hearing issue when he organised a camp for farmers. Another, a physician, was impressed by the bonhomie, brotherhood, striving-to-help-each-other feeling that prevailed in the bitter cold. Another lamented the lack of healthcare facilities, specifically mentioning the need for more doctors. It is no surprise that dozens of farmers have died protesting, at least some due to lack of healthcare.
Still, the question remains: should doctors take part in political/non-medical protests? Apart from a few instances of some organisations (e.g., Indian Doctors for Peace and Development), faculty associations of medical institutions have maintained stately positions of non-alignment, presumably because “it doesn’t concern us”.
My answer to this question is immaterial: I am too un-influential and inconsequential. But I will quote the German playwright Bertolt Brecht:
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.
Since Brecht is not a physician, I end with a quote from the first edition of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a text often called the “doctors’ Bible”, that I read as an undergraduate student:
To the physician, as to the anthropologist, nothing human is strange or repulsive. The true physician has a Shakespearean breadth of interest in the wise and the foolish, the proud and the humble, the stoic hero and the whining rogue. He cares for people.
Samir Malhotra works at the Post-Graduate Institution of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.