Largo Doctors
It is not difficult to imagine doctors having a God-complex. After all, when an ailing person comes to them, they do a thorough check-up, hear out the symptoms, and after asking a few more questions they somehow come up with a diagnosis, and suggest possible treatments to the patient. Without their expertise and wise words, what would have become of the patient?
Largo doctors literally have the license to dictate to their patients what food and medicine to take to improve their situation. They have the right knowledge to inform them of what is bothering them, how it came about, how it can be prevented, and most importantly, how it can be treated. They are in a position to prescribe what medication the patient must take, how and when to take it. The patient relies on every word the doctor says. Is that not what all those years in medical school was all about?
In a medical scenario, it is the doctor’s orders that everyone is counting on. Is the doctor going to ask that this procedure be performed? Will the doctor request that these tests be done? What is the doctor’s prognosis; everything depends on that. What kind of treatment does the doctor recommend? Everyone waits for the doctor’s go signal. No wonder doctors in Largo feel so powerful.
Taking into consideration some of the medical “miracles” doctors are able to perform – transplants, transfusions, vaccines – one can sometimes wonder, what can doctors NOT do?
Though they may be able to do all these wondrous things which are mostly beneficial to humans, it is all a product of science and medicine. They cannot create something from nothing. They cannot produce worlds, or nature. They can only follow instructions based on what they have learned, or what knowledge is available. They can only perform according to procedures they have studied.
There have been numerous reports of Largo doctors “playing God”. In Buzzle.com, there was the story about the group of surgeons planning to transplant a womb from a brain-dead donor into a living woman. According to Sundaymercury.net, there were also three thousand patients whose deaths were assisted by medics in the United Kingdom. The site also mentioned that “if the patient’s condition does not permit a quality of life that the doctor would personally find acceptable, it is assumed that the life is not worth living, and treatment is withdrawn.” These are the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) conditions, which are often not relayed to the patient’s family.
It is a highly ethical issue, much like euthanasia, and the extremely controversial subject of cloning. Does a doctor save a life just to save the life, or does he help terminate it if he deems it not worth living? But who is worthy enough to decide for a person if he should live or not? Who can see into the future and predict that given the patient’s current condition, he does not have a bright one at all, and that he is better off dead?
Being a doctor is a grave matter. Being intelligent is not enough. Being compassionate is not enough. A doctor must have the wisdom to make the correct choices as dictated by his conscience. The “Serenity Prayer” expresses it best: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.