Faith, doubt and medicine
FAITH, DOUBT AND MEDICINE “…Let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave in the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” - The Bible. Life is a drama with scenes engendering varying emotions. Hospital is a place where we can best see this phenomenon. Life and death; hope and discouragement; victory and defeat; faith and doubt appear as two facets of a coin as we walk through the wards. More than the white coats, the stink of phenol, the needles and injections, these feelings emanating from human hearts have touched me in my sojourn as a junior doctor. And the question, why people do not comply with our instructions, in the recent staff meeting triggered this prose. In a place like tribal Orissa, where awareness levels are abysmally low, a perfunctory look at the hospital reveals a lack of trust- the pervading feeling that the hospital authorities are bent on causing harm to the patient. Noncompliance to treatment, thinking that doctors want to squeeze