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Haven't been blogging lately. In fact, i was thinking of stopping altogether. It's not that i'm lazy or anything (or perhaps that's partially it), but i feel it's (at least to me) lost too much of it's initial purpose already. Blogs in general are getting too rampant. Everyone's blogging nowadays, and expects this channel to be one which everyone else needs to go through to be kept updated about their lives. People expect others to have read up on their blogs already, so a usual comment when meeting up (in person, actually) would be something to the effect of:
Blogger: "I did this-and-that the other day."
You: "Oh really? How was it?"
Blogger:"So-and-so... it's on my blog, wrote all about it." (with the expectation that you'd have read all about it, or should go read all about it)
Well, of course they'll expect you to read about it, since they put in effor t typing it all in. But since that expectation naturally comes about, i decided i should keep things slow. Stick to the real world. Yeah.
(of course, it seems like sort of a contradiction that i'm typing it in, but i suppose it's more for closure)
Anyway, was just impressed by an article that i read in the recent issue of SMA News, that i thought i should put in an excerpt for myself. A reminder about how Medicine should really be, not the un-noble profession that it may seem to have become. Of course, it can be amusing too (sgdr.blogspot.com , cheers to my friends blogging there...), but perhaps there should always be some reflection of how it used to be.
The article i was reading was entitled "dollars & sense in medical care", a reprint of the original printed in 1975. One point which the author Dr Koh Eng Kheng impressed upon me was the fact that Medicine used to be a profession restricted to the 'rich' who could afford it. You would think that this was elitist, and overly exclusive, but Dr Koh made a point which seemed the contrary:
"Are doctors getting more mercenary these days? While having my hair cut at the barber, I read an article which says that in Britain a new class of people are taking to the medical profession. In the past the British upper crust used to consider only three professions worth following: the clergy, doctoring and the army. Being in the profession was that which counts. Earning a living was of less consequence as these people had private incomes of their own. With higher education being made available now to everyone rich or poor, medicine as a career is now being looked upon as a profession like any other profession - banking, accountancy, engineering. There is no longer any talk of "nobility" in the calling. If you work overtime, you ask for overtime pay. A doctor's patients are no longer patients or friends, they are his clients. With medicine becoming more of a science rather than an art, can you blame our new doctors for being cold and calculating?"
Impactful, at least to me. That'll be a challenge though, to keep "noble" and above the calling of pure monetary rewards, EVEN as the general public looks to you no longer as a "noble" practitioner, but a service, a commodity, that they buy, pay for, and can make a flippant switch to another.
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