Doctors are not Gods.

Unpopular opinion: Doctors are not Gods.

With the ongoing corona crisis, a lot of attention has been drawn towards doctors and other healthcare workers who are out there in the frontline doing their best to avert this crisis (which they actually do on a regular basis, even without a pandemic). And I wholeheartedly mean it when I say that they are the backbone on which we are relying in current times. When we get out of this, it will be because of them (and certain other people). I also don’t mean to take anything away from them when I say this, but doctors are not gods. They never were. Not before corona, not now. Allow me to explain.

Medical literature is a work in progress . There's this term medicine uses, 'idiopathic'. It basically means the cause is unknown, we don't know why a certain disease/disorder occurs, but we are trying to find out. Now, I don't have a lot of experience, in fact, I'm still just a student, but from what I have learned and observed, when it comes to a lot of diseases, we are mainly prolonging the consequences, controlling the symptoms, and wading you through them a bit more comfortably until they disappear altogether. Sometimes they disappear, sometimes they don’t.  But there’s only so much a doctor can do. Because medicine is still undergoing research, and it always will. We know a lot more today than we did yesterday. And we can control morbidity and mortality in a much better sense now. But that still does not mean we know everything. The human body is complex, there’s a lot that goes on in it that’s beyond our understanding . So if you go to a doctor with the mentality that they are gods, and all your bodily woes will find a recluse in their expertise, I'm sorry to say that you will only be disappointed. Not because they are not good enough, because they are. They are the best version of healthcare that is available currently, and they are the best shot you have. But  medicine is still just evolving, and medical literature is not in a position yet where they can give you answers for everything. When you go to a doctor with the notion that he/she can help you with your illness, yes, they most definitely can. Because that is all that he/she is. A person in a position who can treat you, nothing more, nothing less. And in order for them to do that, they need your time, your patience, and they need you to understand that it is going to be a process. You cannot have unrealistic expectations of getting cured miraculously. They don’t have any supernatural powers like god. They are regular people like you and me. Medical science has not recognised miracles, and doesn’t know how to make them happen. If you want to see miracles, you can go to a temple or a church or a mosque, because you are not going to find them in a doctor.

We see violence against doctors increasing, is it because you hold them answerable and accountable for a life? That’s absurd, even God cannot guarantee life. No good doctor wants a superlative stature for himself. The primary problem arises when you stop treating doctors like fellow humans. Some years in medical school doesn't change the fact that they too are normal people in need of compassion, respect, and yes, rest. So I am sorry to say, but doctors are not gods. But maybe we can call them superheroes. Albeit, they were not born with superpowers, they studied a decade or more to earn them. Not very different from the rest of us then?