Why the ‘Game of Thrones’ in medical science?!
---Sparshita Nag
Can you imagine the video game giant Nintendo being as successful as it has been, without its dedicated team of game developers? On the flipside, do you think Mario would’ve become a household name without the phenomenal execution of marketing strategies by Nintendo? I’m sure everybody agrees that this company or its team of R&D would not have existed at all had it not been for a steady base of pint-sized consumers going crazy over how to help Mario rescue his princess!
In crude economics terminology, the source/inventor, mediator and benefactor are inter-dependent on each other constituting a universal system so as to be able to maintain equilibrium in the demand-supply curve.
Now let’s shift the frame to something more familiar. How about Medicine? Sounds good? Well....In a world full of morbidities and fatalities, putting myself in the shoes of a patient honestly makes me bow down in gratitude before God for creating Doctors. Really, what would a Malaria patient in Africa or a RTA (Road traffic accident) victim with fracture shaft femur (a broken thigh bone) or a cancer patient anywhere in the world do without doctors? Boy this does feel good to write (read ‘it bloats my ego like never before!’) given I am an MBBS myself....conducting normal deliveries, resuscitating a newborn with respiratory distress, diagnosing an acute myocardial infarction and thrombolysing the patient to alleviate pain, assisting in immobilizing that heck of a broken arm or even suturing that gaping wound, I have done it all! I am also proud to have colleagues all around the world working in the harshest of conditions away from home and family to relieve the world of suffering. We save the world! Applause! Nevermind that there is still a significant number of conditions that we ‘cannot cure’ simply because the treatment is ‘Not Available’ (Read that again).
Some wise saintly friend (my Conscience) once commented, “What if you did not have pharmaceutical drugs, diagnostic equipment or any surgical tools? Would you still be able to call yourself an independent medical practitioner or cure any of the conditions stated above? In essence, will you be able to deliver health to an ailing patient as easily as you do now?” This really got me thinking...Well, my conscience was right. After all, the biomedical engineers design surgical tools/diagnostic equipment, pharmacology researchers develop drugs which follows leads from what basic scientists discover after toiling for hours in their laboratories about the physiology and pathology of the organ system under study.
I agree that we doctors do relieve a patient’s suffering and have an inhuman work pattern at times but at the end of the day, we are the mediators of what is being discovered/invented in the labs. Now this again makes me bow down with gratitude before God...only this time it is for Doctors as well as a wee bit for Medical Researchers too......(A tight slap on my face from my Conscience followed!! Whatt?? Why??)...oooookay....a 70-30 gratitude share for docs and researchers....that should do it? (A persisting venomous look from my Conscience)....ugh 60-40?! (Conscience progresses to a Parkinsonism-like masked facies...probably saw a slight lateralisation of lips too).....alright...alright...50-50. And that’s it! I do acknowledge that we depend on the research fraternity for what we deliver, but even they depend on us for translating their research...so equal gratitude fits best here...(my Conscience finally smiles brightly!).....time for a secret here...I still am as happy as I was before, even after pulling down the gratitude levels for docs....Reason? I am currently a medical researcher in-the-making!! Surprise!!
As insensitive as this may sound, a word of gratitude to the patients for falling sick. After all it’s them that keep the medical profession alive and kicking and fuel medical research. May God bless one and all with good health, but after a bout of treatable sickness. No offence intended! Guess what? My elation continues.....because I happen to be a patient too! Anyone can be! (Don’t worry I won’t bow down before God this time! I don’t want a broken back now)
So what is the take home message then? We all are part of a system in our professions with varied roles as an inventor, an executor/mediator or a benefactor. We are dependent on each other to serve a greater cause, which in case of medicine is fighting the disease. Like one of my friends summed it up, medical research is like catching that specific fish from the high seas while medical practice is akin to the fish-market both catering to fish-lovers!! Funny but undeniably true!
So rather than getting sucked into the unfortunate reality of fierce professional rivalry over who gets more patients and perks (Doctors, are you listening?) or who has more journal publications/H-index to their credit (Attention Researchers!!) or even waging a war between these two professions to establish dominance like our animal brethren do, life would be easier if we all learn the art of mutual co-operation and knowledge transfer in addition to doing our bit to contribute towards the greater cause of eliminating sickness from the face of the world. We all are a team. Let’s keep it that way. Let’s just do away with this ‘Game of Thrones’ now! However if competing is in your nature, why not do it with yourself?
As for the fact that we may very well be out of work in absence of sickness, let us not underestimate the efficient adaptive mechanisms of the creepy-crawly microbial beauties! Rest assured, cuz no amount of Dr. Mario would probably ever be enough to stop them forever! ---------------------x----------------------x---------------------