On one hand, doctors are known to work long exhausting hours in an operation theatre struggling to save the life of an accident victim or remove the tumor of a badly diseased patient. Even in private practice, many doctors work long after their closing hours.

However, it has become fairly common today for doctors (let us make that some doctors) to look down on certain patients, especially patients from a low income group. In hospitals and strangely even in private practices, a large number of this fraternity looks with disdain at the common man. It is not unusual for doctors to ridicule elderly patients who keep coming back with the same complaints or belittle one’s seemingly harmless sore throat.

There are doctors who fawn over the rich and affluent and spend hours chatting with them while other patients await their turn with drooping heads and tired bodies. A doctor’s attitude towards his patients, regardless of his patient’s financial status, should be one of kindness and patience.  Each and every patient is an individual with a physical or mental problem that needs to be resolved; else he or she wouldn’t visit a doctor or hospital. And every doctor has to understand that half the cure lies in being considerate towards the patient. A smile and a kind word from a doctor can frequently be more effective than the treatment. In fact, many patients have been heard to comment that they like to go to a particular doctor because he or she is “so sweet to talk to.” Or “I always feel better after I take that doctor’s medicine” when really the medication has almost nothing to do with the cure.

Every physician who has taken the Hippocratic Oath is required to uphold a number of professional and ethical standards. And kindness is one of them. And while at it, the physician should develop an attitude of gratitude to God for having bestowed on him or her, the skill to serve humanity in one of the noblest professions known to man.