When it comes to respecting doctors and medical staff I have an advantage here which is that two of my family members and my best pal Haidak are all in the medical profession, and I see all of the reasons very clearly why they should be given respect. I have noticed however in the past 20 years that this respect seems to have diminished slightly, much of this is down to politics and how they use healthcare as a football to pass around, making cuts and making life more difficult for doctors and medical staff. With this being said, it is vital that these men and women do get the respect they deserve, and here is why.
Sacrifice
Not enough people are aware of the incredible sacrifice which these men and women make for us. The hours that they work are long and arduous and the number of events and special moments that they miss in their personal lives because of their job is incredible. If I ever want to get some food with Haidak we often joke about 4th time lucky, because this is normally the amount of failed attempts at meeting up that we have, because he gets called into the hospital. People talk about salaries of doctors as though this makes up for the time they miss in their personal life, I can assure you that they’d rather have the free time than the money.
Hard Work
It is not just the work which they do as a doctor which gives us cause to respect them, but also the sheer amount of hard work which they put in to becoming a doctor in the first place. My college years were like many other people’s experience, phases where I had to put in the hard work but that was secondary to the fun which I had socially. Both my brother and my friend however didn’t have this social experience, because there simply wasn’t any time for it.
Emotions
Many perceive doctors to be robotic in terms of their emotions but this isn’t the case and the personal burden which many of them take on with their patients is enormous. These men and women live with life and death every single day, and in many cases they lose patients in situations where they were the last ones who could’ve helped them. It is very rarely the doctors fault of course but if your job is to save and improve lives and that hasn’t happened, it can be very easy to think that it was your fault. Most of us don’t see doctors away from work, we don’t see the struggles that they go through or the massive amount of stress which they are under, simply because of the gravity of their job.
For these reasons and many more the doctors that work in our hospitals, saving lives, curing diseases and improving people’s lives, must be given our utmost respect at all times.
