7 benefits of becoming a doctor.

You get heaps of professional satisfaction, every passing day. You manage to transform despondent faces to the ones that radiate sheen. You manage to help someone duke out that pessimism and roar back in life. A doctor may not get all the cakes and ale in life; but on the professional frontier, he is a winner on most of the days.

You are generally taken with mighty respect. Generally people consider doctors to be noble and selfless chaps. And generally, people are right when setting their opinions. Barring exceptions, the prevailing lot of doctors is sensible, compassionate and hard-working.

You get to meet a lot of new faces daily. Social insulation might never occur to a doctor, as the prevailing equation of demand-supply ratio is in favor of doctors. By meeting strangers every day and offering them a slice of life, as a doctor, one increases one’s chances of blending in life quite easily.

You understand the importance of being punctual and being regular. As doctors, we have to be there on time, every time. It might not prove to be a sabbath’s day journey in the initial days; however, as the time passes, you don’t need an alarm clock or a manual reminder. You are always on a programmed mode.

People look up to you as a role model. I am not saying that doctors are the only role models of the society; the list of provisional role models is packed like sardines - soldiers, scientists, farmers, honest officers, teachers to mention a few. Being a doctor attracts a plethora of attached emotions; you are looked upon as one of the more responsible citizens of the country. People come up to you to take advices. Kids want to emulate you when they grow up.

People want to befriend you. I must say that in India, there is still a large mental gap between a doctor and non-medico population. A lot of times I feel that my patients get elated when I ask them about their lives, their families and their own spaces. It’s a common perception that a doctor doesn’t make friends easily; though with the changing mind-sets, advent of sophisticated communication channels and evolution of social media machinery, the feeling is fading fast.

Your voice is being sought after. People want to know the reality behind printed medical news, which so often contradicts itself if all the versions are put together. People want to know your opinion about their genuine illnesses; people trust you verbatim. In most of the cases you don’t have to stress a point to make it feel relevant; the fact that you said it twice is enough for a patient to realize its importance.