Doctors are still gods in India

My hospital has used that to its advantage and placed several doctors in rural and slum areas to not only look after health but also act as mentors and community leaders. Healthcare is not holistic because our wanky biopsychosocial curriculum tells us it is. It’s holistic because people are not defined by their illnesses.

An illness is part of who someone is when they have it. But whether they contract it and how it progresses is not only determined by the nature of the illness but also the nature of the person. People are shaped by their genes and their environment. Therefore to uplift communities and improve their resilience we must focus on improving their environment. Hedgewar hospital espouses this philosophy and not only treats the ill but also runs schools, adult education programmes, micro credit schemes and preventative health workshops to uplift communities.

Gandhi said ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’. The doctors at this hospital are doing just that.


I read something else in the lunch room at the hospital that I thought would fit well here. It goes something like this.

“When I was a young man I wanted to change the world, but that was too difficult so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change my nation I tried to change my town. But I couldn’t change my town either so as an older man I tried to change my family. Now as an old man I have come to a realization. If as a young man I had changed myself I would have changed my family. Me and my family could have had an impact on our town, and my town could have changed my nation and indeed the world.”