The privilege of working
Last week I met one of my old schoolfriends who has been working as a GP in Dehiwela for the past 50 years.
At an age when most of his contemporaries in other professions have retired and are living out what they believed would be, at the time they retired, the twilight of their lives, my friend continues to go to work every weekday in his dispensary – as he has been doing for the past five decades. He still gets up every morning by six, does a brisk 45 minute walk, has his breakfast (the menu of one plantain, two cups of tea and three slices of bread has not changed over the years) – and does a quick shave and shower. He then gets neatly dressed in shirt, tie and old fashioned tie-pin before travelling the short distance from his home to his workplace.
Of course he now has a couple of young doctors working with him in the practice, and he no longer works in the afternoons – but he still sees patients as he used to do. Many are the faithful folk who patiently wait to consult him. He is now seeing the grandchildren of some of the patients he first got to know as a young doctor starting out in practice.
When I asked him why he keeps working when he no longer has a financial need to do so, he smiled.
“When you are a young doctor, “he replied, “You HAVE to work long hours to earn your living. If you don’t put in the hours, you have no income – so taking a day off becomes a rare privilege. But now that I am 75 and the children have grown up, I don’t need to earn as much. Nowadays, being able to spend a whole day working at the clinic becomes a privilege!”
I could well appreciate the wisdom of his words. For him, seeing patients every day is a way of continuing to keep busy and staying connected with people The intellectual exercise of listening to their stories, putting together the information gathered from his understanding of their stories and his examination of their bodies to formulate a diagnosis – all this keeps his brain in good shape.
If one considers the phenomenon termed Job Satisfaction, the idea of making a correct diagnosis and observing his patients getting better as a result of what he has done – how much good does that do for the emotional well being of the doctor!
“On occasion” he added, “there are patients who have nothing seriously wrong with them. What they want is the opportunity of seeing you – so you can have a look and reassure them that they are OK. Even if they have been to see another doctor in the teaching hospital or a highly qualified specialist, they insist on seeing you – because over the years they have built up trust in you. All they are looking for is a chat, an explanation in simple terms of what the busy specialist told them - and reassurance from you, their family doctor.”
Even though his mornings at the dispensary keep him busy he describes his days as being “enjoyably busy”. It is good not only for his patients’ health but also for his own health and wellbeing.
As he observed to me, “How much better it is at my age to be doing what I like to do and even getting paid for it, instead of thinking of myself as a retiree who is past my “sell by” date! This is much better than getting up late, lounging about in my sarong and pottering about the house like an old man!”
“And I must add that even my wife is happy – because I leave home every morning to come to work and then I don’t infringe on her domain as the head of the house!”