More questions than answers

One group of doctors, with whom Anna and I had some opportunities to interact with, during the last six months in a few medical schools, is post-graduate trainees or those waiting for their post-draduate training opportunity. Most of them are in their late twenties or early thirties. some of them are married or about to be married. They charm me by their good intentions.

There is a common thread in their comments and questions. There is  a sense of tiredness and anxiety which they convey. Some have even questions whether they chose wisely to train in Medicine. Some find the journey ahead demanding and stressful. I get a sense that their youthful enthusiastic spirit is languishing and and  they feel that they are victims of circumstances.  

Looking back at the similar period during my training years, what surfaced during conversations with my friends and colleagues was a sense of excitement of the opportunities and prospects awaiting us. Most of us had already chosen a direction or vocation and we viewed the training period as a preparation time for that. There was the excitement about the technological advances in medicine which  created in us an anticipation about the widening horizon of application of new knowledge in different specialties. Our teachers were our mentors, companions and well-wishers. They made us feel that their focus of attention was on us.

I feel concerned by the lack of interest or apathy which these doctors who are in training convey. They are burdened by the demands of training and the challenge of having to prove their worth and abilities through what and how they achieve. Their well being is conditioned by the goodwill they earn from their trainers, who are senior consultants, often preoccupied with their interests to be successful and visible. There are only few consultants or medical teachers, who still carry a mentoring or enabling attitude towards their trainees. Having worked in five medical schools in India over a span of forty years, I feel awfully disturbed by the deficit in the training model of young post graduate students. They are seen as a work force in most hospitals, meant to work long hours, often underpaid and denied of a formative experience in values, good practices and a calling for self-giving service in medicine.

I feel there is a need to attend to this. Anna and I have felt the need for a while now to have a mentoring circle for young trainee doctors, so that they grow up attending to their personal formation, family life, discernment of their vocation in health care, and grow up acquiring the art of practice of medicine. I wonder, whether it is almost becoming a calling for us now ! We wonder whether we shall begin by offering week end'Time Out' for rest and reflection! 

The national mood of health care policy makers in India is to quadruple the number of post-dradaute trainees by 2020. Not many of them realise that the trainees join the course wounded in their spirit due to the tough competitive culture and go through the training with a 'business plan' for their professional success.

What disturbs me most is that this profession is beginning to lose its noble traditions, because we no longer see the training period as formative in purpose!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)