whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many
As I sit at the clinic patiently, I always notice this habit of a relative of patients or patients the,selves just walking through the door with no sense of courtesy or etiquette to the patient we are talking to.
As an Indian doctor, this is not very surprising.. we Indians are known for our impatience and breaking rules especially waiting in line or being humble when confronted about it. As every patient does feel it’s their right to be called earlier as they are most urgent…. but as doctors we have to triage and pick the most urgent and other method is to pick according to the appointment token..
As a cancer institute with a truck load of patients daily, we have a hard time posting cases for surgery on early basis. Out patients are awaiting a long time for a slot for surgery. We do prioritise the most urgent patients and those with emergent conditions but not everyone can be accommodated early so alot of patients try to pull some strings .. find a staff ,ember from hospital who they are related to or neighbors to or worse, get a local political figure to poke their nose into hospital business trying to make themselves self important …
As someone who is a stickler of rules and regulations, it annoys me when non cancer patients push their way through up the list and fight and crib about the delay of few days… and when they try to impress upon us that they are important than other patients just cause they are educated or economically stable or know a few people in administration section.
We don’t wish to be great , we should be humbled. While I have seen my own mom sit at waiting room in hospital for a check up as I was walking around … I realised how being humble makes a huge difference … yes we all are unique and now with social media have a voice and seek to be validated with likes and hearts but there is more to life than just being admired and followed by so many people…
The Lord asks us to be humble and focus on Him and not on world gains of popularity. Letx try to be that… harder than just typing it here.
Let us ask mother Mary guidance.
AMEN
