One of my biggest dilemmas as a doctor

I was once asked to put my signature down as a witness for a nurse’s divorce papers. She approached me completely out of the blue — and it remains one of the biggest dilemmas I have come across as a doctor, to be honest (and it’s not even remotely medically-related)!

28 Mar 2010

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Tell me what you think.

I only found out then that in New Zealand (and in some other countries too), doctors are among a group of professions legally allowed to witness statutory declarations.

She has had enough of the years of his abuse, she said, flatly. I would hate to be the person completing the last part of the legal paperwork allowing the breaking up of what was supposed to be a cherished and sacred matrimony (and how those words ring hollow in today’s society), but I signed my name almost too trustingly.

At that time, I just felt doing anything else would be like preaching cold ideals to a hurting world in need of something much warmer. Perhaps I can start somewhere else if I wanted to make a difference.

I was reminded of Matthew 19 too. But I still wonder if what I did was right.
I don’t know, what do you think?

Coronary artery disease no more

Mr. G needed a coronary artery bypass operation – he had all three of his major coronary arteries critically stenosed from atherosclerosis, and was getting crescendo angina from this.

10 Dec 2009

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Tell me what you think.

It took more than a long fortnight of wait in the hospital before he was finally scheduled to undergo the operation the following week. The consultant cardiologist and I went to see him that Monday to tell him the good news of the confirmed operation date, but Mr. G surprised us completely.

He started off painting a rather awkward atmosphere talking about scars and the cross, then later declined the operation, politely but adamantly. He told us a friend from church had visited him over the weekend, and over prayer he now felt different – he was convinced that he has been spiritually healed.

“I have faith. Give me the chance to prove to you that I am right,” he said with a smile.

And I stood there – on my left was the consultant who didn’t immediately know how to respond from a cardiologist role, and on my right the patient whose claim couldn’t be explained easily with human wisdom.

At that moment, I suddenly wasn’t sure who to root for…
I have been thinking about it.

Promises of satisfaction

Have you ever looked around and realized that the world is just replete with promises of satisfaction? Think about it!

5 Jun 2009

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Tell me what you think.

Blockbuster movies, parties with friends, breakaway shopping sprees, travel trips, hunting for music, chasing good books, enjoying food, and all the colorful product advertisements everywhere – do they not all target at our search for satisfaction? And the world is just full of such promises of satisfaction – that it is blinding.

Many of them are short-lived. Some of them are lies. We all know. Yet it is easy to get lost, and in the process, all we end up thinking and speaking of is about ourselves. All of this is like “a chasing after the wind”, as the book of Ecclesiastes aptly puts it.

There is much more to say, but I’ll stop. It actually takes some effort to think about this in the context of our personal lives (yours and mine)! But tell me what you think.

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