As a postgraduate resident, you hardly get time for anything other than work, but I had to write this.
I would like to ask some questions, and I am sure I will be echoing the voices of many hardworking doctors in India who are trying to save lives with innumerable constraints surrounding them.
First of all, when did journalism become about taking a mike and venting out anger? Where is the research? Where is the nuance? Your questions only show you know nothing about the disease or hospital etiquette. You know what’s worse, in the interview your arrogance is very evident, it doesn’t even let you learn or have a nuanced opinion.
Couldn’t you see? While the child came in, the doctor in that ICU was looking after a patient, and all those patients would have to be managed by that one doctor. His eyes show the strain he is under. As doctors, we can imagine how numb he must have been feeling after seeing a countless number of patients all day. But we carry on because trust me when I tell you, no one values lives as much as a doctor, because on a daily basis we handle and fight with death. Didn’t you have the slightest empathy for that doctor who was in front of your eyes, running around trying to do his best?
In our profession, if we don’t study and prepare hard, the consequences are dire; it can cost us a life. Hence we are trained to never go unprepared; that’s why becoming a doctor is one of the toughest achievements. Your rant in that ICU showed you were the least bit prepared. Maybe in your profession, consequences are much smaller if you aren’t prepared? Hence this shoddy performance in the guise of being a journalist.
Your interview makes me wonder if TV journalists are journalists any more, or have they have become showmen and women because they often seem to be peddling sensationalism to garner TRPs. There is no other logical explanation for this nonsensical style of reporting.
If you had a shred of empathy for patients in distress, you wouldn’t enter an ICU with your camera and golden mike and make the ICU non-sterile. You wouldn’t use children to sell your news so you can get your TRPs! If you had real empathy and you wanted a solution, you would have read about the disease, you would have been informed about the healthcare structure in India; then, naturally, you would have known about the stress doctors are put under in this country.
You didn’t, all you wanted was a catchy headline, so you could feel you were some sought of a messiah for society. Do your job. If you want to be a leader, join politics and change the system.
You are lucky you have a “show” on TV. If doctors were to perform this way in our jobs, we would be beaten, maimed, or maybe even killed. At times, we are attacked even when we do our jobs diligently. I have to say, I can’t help but admire the patience that doctor had while he was handling your unruliness in that extremely busy ICU.
Now I am talking directly to our fraternity, to the hardworking doctors all over our country. We can’t let this incident go without some accountability. The channel has to take some action and we have to put pressure, otherwise, they will not.
It’s time we stand up for one another. I strongly think the channel needs to take responsibility for the actions of this interviewer. We need to see some unbiased, nuanced journalism for a change. I refrain from calling her a journalist because she has failed to do justice to the profession.
I demand an apology from the news channel at prime time, and from the woman in question. Enough is enough.