Passion with a Heart

GUEST BLOGGER Sabrina Tan honours us again with a message of hope from the Younger Generation. I hold high hopes that such Malaysians are not lost to more appreciative countries.

Compassion

By SABRINA TAN



I feel like writing about compassion because it’s something that I have not seen for a while.

I have to admit that I am not the most compassionate person on earth. I could do better and I hope that I would improve on this arena. However I would hope to see that there are more compassionate people around.

This is a personal experience that I have just encountered recently:



It was a placid Tuesday afternoon. I was on rotation for outpatient clinics with 2 other colleagues of mine. We were supposed to do extractions and managing post operative problems for the rest of the afternoon.

We were waiting around for the past 20 minutes and then the receptionist came in a hurry and dumped a patient file onto the table. The three of us was excited including the supervisor who was in charge of us.

We opened up the file and there, under the heading “Medical History” it’s written—Hepatitis C positive.

For those of you who don’t know what is the big deal of Hepatitis C, it’s a blood-borne viral infection that would damage one’s liver irreversibly and there is no vaccine or cure for it. It could be transmitted easily by saliva or needle-stick injury, which is one of the most common route of infection for dentists.

All three of us were hesitant when we saw that. We were looking each other and none of us wanted to touch it. Immediately the other two, including my supervisor backed away from the file as if it had the disease itself. My supervisor then asked: “So, who wants to do it?”

Silence……

“What about if I do the injection ( anaesthesia) and you guys do the extraction?”

Silence…..

I saw the file opened…and the only thing that strike out was HEPATITIS C POSITIVE

I felt so sad for this person….we have not even seen him…nor have we even talked to him….and already we have made a judgement….

I gathered that it’s not because we don’t feel sorry for the patient, but it’s because we FEAR. We fear of coming out of the comfort zone to go all out to help that less fortunate someone. We fear that we might get hurt ourselves just because we helped him.

And when we knew that he was a previous drug user, it probably made us fear even more.

I then volunteered to see the patient but with the emphasis that I am supervised throughout the whole procedure. My supervisor agreed to it and gave me the caution that I would have to take extra precautions while dealing with the patient’s saliva and blood.

The patient was a very compliant patient, probably because he knew of the discrimination of society and was probably more than grateful that we were willing to see him.

It makes me wonder that we as future health professionals, are we able to deal with these patients in real life?

What has happened to our compassion?

What about the doctors who swear the Hippocrates oath?

Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick--- Hippocrates Oath

In the context of every day life, can we shower more love to the people that needed us?

The friend, the neighbour, the mother, the father who have their unheard pleas.

Spare a little time for them, show them your compassion and show them that you cared.

Do unto others on what you would want others do to you.