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Dr Amrinder, MBBS MD (AIIMS) Gold Medalist, is one of the few doctors who did not succumb to generate ‘enough revenue’ for a corporate hospital. She informs, provokes and amuses us with its aftermath, exclusively for Different Truths.
My article in a leading daily had gone viral. It was about my unceremonious ouster from a corporate hospital for not generating enough revenue. The response was overwhelming. Comments poured in from all over India and abroad. It touched a raw nerve for there were thousands of doctors and professionals in other corporate organizations who had met a similar fate and suffered the humiliation in silence.
My article in a leading daily had gone viral. It was about my unceremonious ouster from a corporate hospital for not generating enough revenue. The response was overwhelming.
On the plus side, it was labelled the ‘most discussed’ popular blog. My phone rang incessantly; old friends renewed contact, new friends praised my guts, and someone wanted me for a podcast on his platform. Particularly moving was a phone call from an unknown doctor who kept saying ‘thank you’ repeatedly till she broke down. One can imagine how hurt she must have been and how grateful she was that I had given a voice to her angst. I basked in my fifteen minutes of fame, till the side effects began to set in for inadvertently I had evoked the mantra of the doyen of Indian journalism and literature Khushwant Singh – ‘inform, provoke and amuse’.
Inform I certain did for many said it was an eye opener while, you have:
· ‘burst a bomb’
· ‘created a Tsunami’
· ‘stirred a hornet’s nest’ which I certainly did for the sting hurts really bad
· ‘opened Pandora’s box’
These were some of the epithets it provoked.
Though the bouquets far exceeded the brickbats, I was not a celebrity who had mastered the art of dealing with trolls but a hurting human with a raw wound. While positive comments hovered around me like a bunch of beautiful butterflies, the negatives stuck to my brain like leeches sucking my peace of mind.
Though the bouquets far exceeded the brickbats, I was not a celebrity who had mastered the art of dealing with trolls but a hurting human with a raw wound. While positive comments hovered around me like a bunch of beautiful butterflies, the negatives stuck to my brain like leeches sucking my peace of mind. They said:
– I had washed dirty linen in public – well there was not enough space in my mind and heart to contain it.
– Jis thaali me khaati hai usme ched banati hai – yes after they stopped serving me food in it
– Bhadas nikali hai – I plead guilty – ander rakhti to phut jaati
– I had added fuel to the fire of the deteriorating doctor-patient relationship – for I had written ‘in desperation some doctors are reduced to using unethical means.’ They did not focus on the word ‘some’; we all know that some people are bad in all walks of life.
The one that hurt me most was from a senior journalist who wrote:
‘Her disparaging statement about CGHS and poor patients towards the end of the piece should not be surprising. She is a doctor who left one corporate hospital group …to join another…. And then cries about corporate greed!’
As one reader, aptly put it, ‘there is a difference between greed and getting a decent remuneration for skilled service’. Of the Rs150 that were charged from a CGHS patient, 30% went to the hospital while, like infantry, the doctors bore the brunt of onslaughts; be it medico-legal or physical assault.
As one reader, aptly put it, ‘there is a difference between greed and getting a decent remuneration for skilled service’. Of the Rs150 that were charged from a CGHS patient, 30% went to the hospital while, like infantry, the doctors bore the brunt of onslaughts; be it medico-legal or physical assault.
In retrospect, I realise that this line conveyed the wrong message but I was trying to console myself that whatever happened was for the best and with waves upon waves of corona crashing on human shores, by putting me to pasture, they had perhaps saved my life.
It is not right to say that I left one corporate for another. They did not want me and a host of other doctors anymore. Moreover, at the other hospital I have merely got admission rights for my own clinic patients and an OPD; no unit, no call days, but that is fine with me.
My hospital had offered me this facility as a parting gift, which I refused for there it would be a humiliating down-gradation having been unit head and HOD. At the new place, it would be a mutually satisfying symbiosis of their infrastructure and my patients. Moreover, the respect they gave me was a salve to my self-esteem battered by the cavalier attitude of those I thought were my own.
Returning to the formula of success coined by Khushwant Singh’s ‘inform, provoke and amuse’; though I had managed to inform and provoke, I now proceed to amuse by recalling a hilarious telephonic conversation I had with long lost friend after she read had my article.
Returning to the formula of success coined by Khushwant Singh’s ‘inform, provoke and amuse’; though I had managed to inform and provoke, I now proceed to amuse by recalling a hilarious telephonic conversation I had with long lost friend after she read had my article.
‘More power to your pen.’ She said.
After I had thanked her, she reminisced about the time we were returning from a medical conference and I worried about getting late for my evening OPD at the hospital.
‘Remember how eager you were to serve them; with a flower in your hair when needed?’ She said.
Needed? Though it was common knowledge that I wore a flower in my hair, what did she mean by ‘needed’? When was a flower-in-the-hair ever needed?
‘Well, I had gone to meet the boss on that fateful day to with a flower in my hair, but he did not fulfill my need’, I joked. ‘On the other hand, I was informed by an emissary that I was ‘needed’ no longer!’ He did not even have the courtesy to meet me.’
‘Well, I had gone to meet the boss on that fateful day to with a flower in my hair, but he did not fulfil my need’, I joked. ‘On the other hand, I was informed by an emissary that I was ‘needed’ no longer!’ He did not even have the courtesy to meet me.’
‘Tera deedar toh kar leta nikalne se pehle.’ She said.
‘What good would that have done? No one salutes a setting sun… if he only knew that my heart is still young.’ I sighed.
‘You should have barged in with your heart’s ejection fraction report.’ She laughed.
‘Better still would have been to get a cardiac echo done in his office and shown him ‘bahut jaan hai baaqi.’
It was much too hilarious for words and we laughed till tears flowed from our eyes till, to my horror, something else threatened to flow!
It was much too hilarious for words and we laughed till tears flowed from our eyes till, to my horror, something else threatened to flow!
‘It seems that one organ of mine has succumbed to age.’ I told her.
‘Which one?’
‘My bladder; it has lost the capacity to hold water.’ This evoked another bout of mirth, which further straining my poor bladder.
I told her about a reader who had written that a doctor working in the corporate should always remember that ‘today could be my last day…’ and have a backup plan ready.
I told her about a reader who had written that a doctor working in the corporate should always remember that ‘today could be my last day…’ and have a backup plan ready.
‘Not many are that wise.’ She said. I agreed wholeheartedly.
‘You know what people still safe within the ‘Big Boss House’ are saying about me?’
‘What?’
‘Khisyaai billi khamba noche.’
‘Which pole?’ she asked naughtily.
‘You have a dirty mind,’ I declared.
‘You have a dirty mind,’ I declared.
There rose before our eyes the ludicrous picture of me scratching ‘that’ pole and we doubled over in laughter.
‘Usko to mai noch hi dalti.’ I declared and we laughed till we could laugh no more.
Such a relief! Inane though our laughter was, it released the stress of dealing with the repercussion of my public outburst.
Visual by Different Truths
