A doctor-daughter of doctor-parents shares her views.
“So, are you ready to take over Dad’s practice?” This question, asked to me by a relative, when I announced my admission to medical college, threw me off guard. While I temporarily laughed off the question, it did set me thinking over the next several years. How did one’s background really create a difference in their medical career?
We often hear the word “nepotism” in context of the entertainment industry, a word that existed since eternity, but was popularized after an eventful episode of Koffee with Karan. Nepotism is the practice of favoring relatives, friends or associates by powerful or influential people, especially while securing jobs and positions. So, when this term is used in the medical field, it often refers to medicos coming from families of doctors.
Being a doctor who is also the daughter of a surgeon and an anaesthetist, I have received my fair share of people telling me that what I get is thanks to the privilege of birth. I also knew that I was not alone, a lot of doctors’ kids faced the same criticism. So here are a few facts as well as a personal account of what exactly is nepotism in medicine.
Many surveys conducted in the United States showed that medical students often felt that having doctor parents was beneficial to applicants in terms of getting internships, getting mentorship or cracking interviews. In addition, doctors, being high-income members, find it less difficult to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of sending their children to medical school. Even beyond that, once they start college or practice, nepotism plays a role in getting an applicant’s name in more publications as well.
The scenario, however, maybe slightly different in India. The NEET exam does not involve any interviews. Admissions are only governed by a few multiple-choice questions, which means that in most cases involving Government/ Municipal hospitals, the process of getting into medical college is completely blinded. In addition, lesser fees in these Government institutions with multiple other financial schemes and aids, help to make sure that meritorious students of varied backgrounds can gain access to medical education. Although this may vary in deemed universities and private colleges, we can safely say that the Indian scenario of securing admission into medical colleges is slightly less dependent on nepotism.
The question of nepotism here, mostly arises after securing admission. There have been instances seen by many doctors during their college days when a particular student is favored during viva voce just because the examiner happened to know the parents of the candidate. The same may happen while selecting a student for publications or even giving more exposure to conducting various procedures during residency. While favoritism, in an institution, can occur for multiple reasons, nepotism does happen to be one of them.
Once a doctor enters medical practice after passing out, setting up a practice is a struggle. However, having someone in the family who already has their feet deep into practice does lessen the struggle and gives the next generation a boost, not just by providing a readymade set up, but also by providing guidance about the finer nuances of each field. In addition, being the descendant of a reputed name in the field of healthcare might as well help to ensure a steady flow of patients. These things are mostly applicable when the Gen-next doctor happens to be in a field similar to their parents. However, doctors have a wide nexus to ensure that there is someone to mentor their junior doctor even if they choose a field that varies from their own.
Every time someone asked me when I was going to sit on ‘Papa ki dukaan’ (my father’s shop) and that I would be so lucky to inherit it, I had no answer. I could not tell them that my branch was poles apart from my parents. Neither could I tell them the number of hours I had put into studying because Government college admissions did not care about lineage. Or the pressure that a doctor kid has to face just to live up to the reputation of a glorious family. When a medical student does not answer a question, the examiner may reprimand him. But it is only the ‘nepo-kids’ of medicine who understand the sheer humiliation of being asked “How do you not know this despite being the son/ daughter of this doctor?” Not to mention, certain worse instances of professors calling up and tattling about the students’ performance to their parents. There have even been stories of medical students being victimised out of sheer bitterness for the parents.
Being a doctor from a doctor family comes with its own roses but not without a few thorns as well. But ultimately, we all have to walk our own paths. Hence, rather than wondering how our lineage can help us, what matters is how it can inspire us. We cannot choose the family we are born in, so whether our background forces us to fend for ourselves right from birth or shelters us with privilege to the level of being excessively dependent well into our adulthood is not in our hands. What is in our hands is to take what suits us best, to get inspired by the examples laid out for us and to carve our own niche and be an individual known by virtues and not by virtue of birth.
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