The Symptoms

I remember when I was back in med school being approached to write something for the press. The details escape me - I was very busy trying to stay afloat in terms of work and beer - what I remember is how it was done: I was told to write something since I had been selected to receive the honour.

Not invited to contribute out of mutual goodwill, no recognition of my time and effot - just a statement that I was being given the honour. A bit like how HSBC now lords it over me; a story for another day when I have more time.

Naturally I told them to piss off and die - I wish. I think I just junked the email.

*****
Some time shortly after the U-turn in recruitment policy (doctor shortage, alamak) a task force was sent to recruit us from the UK.

I didn't know who those people were, except that they were old, slightly out of shape and bursting out of their suits.

About fifty of us showed up more out of curiosity than anything else; we were mostly from london and I guess we had the time to pop by.

What transpired was a lecture on how it was our duty to come back to Singapore, how we were beholden. We were told how much shinier everything was here, how much better equipped it is, and how, above all, we owed it to them to come back.

Most of us were incredulous that this bunch of strangers would presume to come out here and play the Duty Honour Country card - was there a war on that we had missed? Was there any conceivable reason at all that we should give up what we had - and we had a lot, working and studying in london. A lot.

Our president of the SMSS (singapore medical students society) was a very brazen, blunt (and sometimes uncouth. heh) individual. He asked what our pay would be like.

The person hemmed and hawed and beat about the bush. E. asked him what our calls would be like. More of the same. We started chipping in and asking for details. None were forthcoming. It became increasingly apparent that they hadn't come back here to entice us home. They had come expecting us to fall at their feet in adulation.

We left the hall that day convinced never to return if we could help it.

I couldn't help it. There were extenuating circumstances.

I pray the rest of my friends and colleagues who remained there, and overseas are well.

These are increasingly uncertain times we're living with, here in Singapore, but working conditions have improved somewhat, and perhaps with time the rest of the problems will get sorted out. I wouldn't recommend coming back right now, but if you need to I can provide specific details should you require them; leave a comment.

The point of this post is that sometimes people in power - or the people who represent those in power - forget what is really, really important to those on the ground. Their ivory towers grow so tall that stepping out for a jaunt is already, in their opinions, three quarters the job done.

Sometimes they think that walking the ground is akin to reaching out, and they are puzzled when the ground rejects them... when in truth all they have to do is treat the ground like fellow human beings who deserve to be listened to, and made to feel like equals - instead of dirt under their feet, or on their hands to be washed away.