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In response to Dr Jayant Patel's convictions from Australian Indian Medical Graduate Association |
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There are few joys in life which can supersede the joy of finding a place in your dreamt and desired career.Becoming a doctor is one of the few privilaged accomplishments which not only secures a social status but fulfills the underlying desire to alleviate sufferings and serve the humanity.The grief of falling from the grace of one of the most treasured aspects of one's life is soul shattering. And that is what has happened to Jayant Patel who has been repeatedly referred as an Indian doctor (in disgrace).This must evoke a response from Australian Indian Medical Graduate Association,a large group of skilled,honourable and dedicated doctors from India.
Australia has been actively recruiting foreign trained doctors for the past at least 40 yrs. The process of medical registration in Australia by no means is lenient. Medical training in India though somewhat variable in the hundreds of medical institutions,is generally considered comparable with the world class medical education both at graduate and postgraduate levels.A vast majority of Indian doctors have made easy, comfortable and acceptable transition in the Australian community of patients and professionals.Indian doctors are valued as competent clinicians,academics and researchers around the world and Australia is no exception.
Dr Jayant Patel's convictions must not reflect on the Indian system of medical education,training,culture or philosophy.
It was the most unfortunate event for the doctor and his patients which undoubtedly was unintentional. As professionals we are the citizens of the world without borders in providing selfless service. As much as Dr Patel must bear most of the responsibility for his neglect in the stringent reveiw of the failure of his surgeries,the hospital must have maintained a peer reveiw system to avoid the continuing complications of the operated patients. Dr patel has submitted to the highest defeat and failur of his life and will continue to pay the price for his unscrupulous professional competence.It is a mistake made by a doctor and not an Indian doctor.
Dr Patel's actions may seem a catastrophe but in the precise field of human body any inadvertent deviation can cause catastrophe,further blurring the objectivity.The art of success is to remain vigilant with objective and realistic self appraisal and the courage to consult a colleague when in doubt. There will be unavoidable,unforseeable and unfortunate adverse outcomes of medical and surgical treatments in the future and doctors of Indian descent who make up nearly one quarter of the medical workforce in Australia can not be excluded from it.
Australian Indian Medical Graduate Association will continue to promote good medicine,scrupulous professionalism,dedication and committment to the patients and to the advancement of medical science in Australia.
Australian Indian Medical Graduate Association would like to emphasise that Dr Patel in his situation does not specifically represent India. As a professional he is a doctor before he is an Indian.
By Dr Shailja Chaturvedi
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