The Doctor as Patient

It’s close to midnight here and I am rushing this post in solidarity with my fellow Filipino physician bloggers. I guess the longer you remain in this business, the more you realize that we are able to continue practicing in fairly good health solely because of some special grace. I am not old and yet I know of quite a number of classmates and batchmates who have died, contracted metastatic cancer, undergone angioplasties and bypasses, and the like.

While I really should be more conscientious in meeting my health screening milestones (at least an annual lipid profile, diabetes screening, colonoscopy, etc) I have only become more cavalier with time because let’s face it, the time allotted us is truly very short and the more we think we can beat that aneurysm growing in our brains with a monthly cerebral CT angiogram, the less importance we give to why we are alive in the first place.

Introspection as to what this is all about needs to take precedence over finding ways of prolonging life for the hell of it. Some old folk have this nasty habit. Much like those self-important geniuses who devote countless hours musing about the existence of God.

Get over it. We are all patients. Our illness is our inability to fully appreciate the exceptional blessing bestowed to us of being able to leave this world a better place.