At first the book seemed intriguing,
a set of stories of Doctors who struggled through life to reach eventual
success. This seemed a near-perfect human interest set of stories – more so, as
I myself am from a family of Doctors, the son of an Army Doctor, the
brother-grandson-nephew-uncle of Doctors. Most of these are again married to
Doctors. I have seen their hard work first hand; and can relate that
it is not an easy profession by any stretch of imagination.
As regards the concept of struggle,
in my years on the planet, I have seen extraordinary stories of struggle,
jaw-dropping stories of raw courage, hard struggle and much much more. More
than my fair share, to be completely honest. In fact, I myself have seen hard struggle
beyond the ordinary. But this isnt my story; so let it be. That said, I will
give some oblique of what it means to struggle. I am reminded of a young man,
who worked as a clerk in my office. Now THAT is a true success story after hard
work – and not one – repeat, not one –
story in this book comes close. By comparison, these stories are those of
luxury, ease and comfort. Sad, but true.
How can you compare the clerk with a
Indian-Top-Doctor? I can, and do compare. This chap wasn’t too intelligent, and
simple tasks seemed hard to him at times. You know what? He had lost both his
legs in an accident. He got up in life, got used to prosthetics, and drove on his bike to and from office
daily. Now that is true success, after
back-breaking hard work. That is real success after struggle. Nothing can
compare to this above. My own life is a story of Ambani-esque luxury by
comparison. And so are most of the stories in this book.
This is a book of stories of Doctors
– primarily Ophthalmologists, and chronicles the stories of 17 doctors who are
what I would call successful in material terms, as well as professional terms.
My main interest was getting to read more of the side of a Doctors life from a
perspective of the Doctor, as I myself
am from a family chock-a-block with doctors of all hues varieties sizes
shapes and types. I wanted to read the many, many sacrifices a Doctor has to
make in terms of time, daily life and more.
Well, in that score, I was
satisfied, though felt a lot more could have been said, as I can personally
testify from first-hand experience of seeing my Dad, Tai and others. A Doctor –
any Doctor - frankly has a life that would break the best of the others into
quivering nervous wrecks. And they do this day after day, after day for years
on end. There is no respite. This book will give the reader some rough idea of
what it means to be a Doctor, though, as I said above, a lot more could have been
said.
I missed the finer nuances of the
Doctors life; the sacrifices and the tensions all Doctors have to make. I
missed the detail discussions of hard cases they solved; or the troublesome
situations they handled. No one- not one
in the list – mentioned any such case,
or many such situations, not to my memory. I may be wrong, of course – but I
for sure don’t recall any. My advice to the author – next time, don’t go for
so many stories – give us only 5; but go into detail.
I would love to read the detailing a Doctor does - has to – and how they go
about taking the hard decisions they do; or of their methods {Like in the book
on Arvind Eye Hospital, Infinite Vision, reviewed here on my blog}
In conclusion, I can state that this
is a great book for those who, like me, are fascinated by the Doctors, the people
e who care for the sick, and make them better again. Sure I missed a lot – but that
is due to my high expectations. I wouldn’t call more than one or two of the
stories one of struggle; or arduous – I have seen far worse struggles by
people. These are not struggle stories - though two or three of them are hard struggles. But they do highlight the long hours,
long studies and pains a person has to take to become a Doctor. Credit to the
author for that.
"This book review is a part of The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program and Blog Tours. To know more log on to thereaderscosmos.blogspot.in"
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