Physicians and imperfections of human nature

Medicine demands sacrifices and permanent commitment, characteristics often ignored or misunderstood by society

The medicine offers its main protagonists a privilege unparalleled in human existence: the chance to alleviate suffering and rescue beings for life. The sensation provided by these moments is breathtaking and this happens in the daily life of the medical life.

Unfortunately, these moments do not last because physicians are often stung by the imperfections of human nature and by the effects of an unjust and unequal society led by rulers unable to understand that without health there are no free beings.

A profession that demands permanent personal commitment, the separation of the family and the coexistence with suffering. And it is often the victim of misplaced misunderstandings of society, which does not always recognize the limitations of medicine or the existence of inexorable facts that involve human existence , such as inexorable death, decay for years or the occurrence of diseases without cure .

How to mitigate those less intoxicating aspects of the profession? I have no doubts: honestly exposing the imperfections that surround medical science and its professionals, fragile as other beings. Much more than that, denouncing the downsizing of those who address us, with the dignity that the position of doctor gives us. Without the shame of protesting, of kicking and sprouting in society the critical conscience and the feelings of citizenship and indignation.

And always remembering Archbishop Desmond Tutu: "If we become neutral in a situation of injustice, we will have chosen the side of the oppressor."