Scholars Amongst Doctors Scarce
DOCTORATE ? / DOCTOR ?........was one who indulged in life - long learning & acquiring of skills, without compromising on morals, values & ethics even for a fraction of a moment, whilst performing.
Until the 19th century, Islamic medicine & Arabic medical texts were studied as part of a physician's curriculum in the Occident. That's because Arabic physicians were among the best in the ancient world. Doctors were highly respected in the Muslim world, so much so that sages as well as physicians were accorded the term, "hakim" & most ancient Arabic doctors were in fact physicians as well as philosophers. Muslim scholars too often wrote poems about medical subjects.
Al-Hayatham, known in Latin as Alhazen, wrote books on medicine, mathematics, physics & astronomy. He wrote commentaries on the works of Aristotle & Galen, also did original experiments with light, coming up with some of the first accounts of refraction, a mathematical method to find the focal point of a concave mirror & a refutation of the Greek theory that vision worked because the eye sent out rays to the object that was observed. Al-Hayatham's work had a major impact on the Europeans Roger Bacon & Johannes Kepler.
Al-Razi was an alchemist for a large part of his life & only became a medical professional later in life when his eyesight began to fail. His observations were nonetheless extremely astute. He was one of the greatest clinical & observational physicians in the Arabic world. He kept detailed case studies in which he recorded his analyses, prognoses, observations of disease symptoms, treatments & cures. He was also well versed in anatomy & in the treatment of shock. For centuries, the Continens or the Kitab Al-Hawi, written by Al-Razi was studied avidly in the western world. In fact, for many centuries, Occidental doctors held Al-Razi in higher esteem than they did Hippocrates & Galen.
For a fear of repetition, accounts about such scholared doctors of the Occidental world have been avoided here & needless to say, they were a plenty too at those times.
Moving ahead to the present era, doctors were no doubt wealthy in terms of movable & immovable physical assets, yet, when it came to the number of scholars amongst them, it was an apparent scarcity.
Why ??? The reason could be any & many, ranging from the individual to the highest point in the community / society, yet, the most important of these would be scripted here.
" I don't want India to be an economic super power. I want India to be a happy country "......J R D Tata.
It was wisdom to comprehend, that education & life long learning served the sole purpose of making good & happy human beings that raced to serve the needy & that other benefits that obviously & automatically ensued were only to be seen as by-products. Gradually, the sole purpose must have been lost & by-products must have begun to drive people. Doctors were no exception here & they became doctors not for becoming good doctors but for grabbing the super power of money, which in turn fetched them the kind of all other powers that they only had to name. Their need therefore to become all-round scholars found it's grave. Thus, what was once-upon-a-time value education, amoebiated into value of education. " What my education would buy me ? " became the hottest-priority.
Crass commercialization of education / essential services gave birth to the medical industry / corporate mafia / medical mafia & after all scholared doctors were never an asset to it's smooth functioning.
" Being scholarly was of what use, when I can still make loads of money, without being one ? " further dissuaded the newer generation of doctors.
" There were only two role models in the whole of the Universe, of which one was already dead & gone & the other was yet to be born ".........A Very Popular Maxim.
Dearth of role models paved way for the sick society. We needed more & more of the likes of Gandhiji, Kalam, Tata, Jaggi Vasudev, Kiran Bedi, etc & etc, but, sick societies seldom manufactured scholars & scholars were needed to run societies & Governments.
" The critical question facing humanity today is what sort of global civilisation should we have ? Will it be dominated by shallow materialism ? Is it possible to create a world in which material and scientific developments are governed by ethical and spiritual principles that promote the prosperity of all people and everywhere ? "....A N Roy, New Delhi (The Hindu).
referred to dr t v padma (the hindu).
by........
fenix k ravichandran, social activist, erode ( tn ) 638 003, india,
mr kumar srinivas, social activist, kolathur,
chennai ( tn ) 600 099, india,
er senthil kumar, president, peakpoint technologies, burlington
( ma ) 01803, usa / tyngsboro ( ma ) 01879, usa,
er a rajakumar, aeronautical / software engineer, east lansing
( mi ) 48823, usa &
dr s selvakumaran, psychiatrist, erode ( tn ) 638 003, india.