In article <[log in to unmask]>, Graham Balin
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>What about the motivation of doing well in a job you like?
Certainly, but that represents a standard ingredient of any professional
and should only be noticeable by its absence.
>if I was I think I would prefer to go
>to my parish priest for solace rather than the nearest cardinal.(Apols
>if I am mixing my religious metaphors here)
You've got the heirarchy right. To continue the allegory, each has a
different function and I would personally go to the one whose function
is appropriate to my needs.
>What external incentive could there be that would not entail the likely
>prostitution of your own ideas to the politically correct frame of
>reference of those "superior" to you in order to *qualify* for your
>award?
We are not doctors in isolation; by working in the NHS we accept
responsibilities as government employees as well as healers. Our terms
of service do not stop at the doctor-patient interface, we control
public funds and are indirectly responsible for health of the group as
well as the individual and also to our employers.
I am not talking of gold stars or brownie points. You didn't get to be a
doctor by doing evening classes. You represent a highly motivated,
highly educated group with above average intelligence which has
undergone a long period of disciplined education and now carry great and
direct responsibilty for other people's lives. You are nobody's fool
but, nevertheless, your selected place of work has involved other people
with different priorities and beliefs - not superior, just different.
These others have presented you with administrative and social
responsibilities which lie outside of your medical purview but remain
part of the 'package' you have bought into. This is not prostitution but
it is a compromise. It is in that compromise, where there is a necessary
dichotomy or an unwanted responisbility that most of your extra
endeavour is requested.
You may be a doctor but the NHS bit is a job as well. If you're going to
put in extra time, extra commitment and extra energy you will be subject
to the same stresses and needs as anybody else, be it politician or
dustman, and respond to the same rewards. The extent of people's needs
will vary, however, and it seems that more and more are being unmet. If
the medical part of the NHS is to continue then those needs should be
met for the doctors and nurses involved or they will take their skills
elsewhere, and the part of the NHS dependant upon them may very well
collapse, which I feel would be a tragedy - yet so easily resolved.
Sorry for the length of the 'sermon' ;-)
Regards
George
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Z J M
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