1st July, National Doctors’ Day
National Doctors Day is celebrated on 1st July every year. This day is celebrated to admire the contributions of medical professionals and doctors quick knowledge in services towards humanity. On this day, we thank physicians for their dedicated services to patients. They come to our help in adverse times when no one of our nearest and dearest friends and family members can help us.
This day is dedicated to all Medical professionals who work and serve patients round the clock to save their lives. Doctors day 2020 is being celebrated for acknowledging the services of doctors and their huge contribution for medical advancement in India.
History of Doctors’ Day
National Doctors Day is celebrated on July 1st all across India to honour legendary physician, the Second Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. He was born on July 1st, 1882 and died on the same date in 1962, aged 80 years. Dr Roy was honoured with the country’s highest Civilian Award, Bharat Ratna on February 4, 1961. He was highly respected physician and a renowned freedom fighter. He was the second Chief Minister of Bengal and remained in this post from 1948 to 1962. He is also considered as the Great Architect of West Bengal. He played an instrumental role in the establishment of IMA and also in the establishment of Medical Council of India(MCI).
Doctors Day is observed in different countries on different dates. In U.S., it is observed on 30th March, in Cuba on 3rd December and on 23rd August in Iran.
National Doctors Day is celebrated by the government and non government health care Organisation to get familiar with the doctors’ contributions. Several events and activities are organised on this day. Free medical checkup camps are organised at public places by the Healthcare organisations to promote quality Medical Services free of cost. In addition discussion programs are also organised across the country to make people aware of health checkup, prevention, diagnosis, proper treatment of the disease etc.
General screening test camps are also organised to make people aware of the priceless roles of doctors in everyone’s life. Several activities at school and college level are organised to encourage youth to choose and dedicatedly follow medical profession. It is truly said that we cannot see God but on earth doctor is like a God who cures and gives us life to live in a better way.
Doctors and Spirituality – Spirit of Oneness
Spirituality is the need of the hour, it is all the more in the context of doctors who are the Global Warriors facing global pandemic covid-19.
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. Spiritual practices enable the person face the ups and downs of life. It prepares them to cope with trying times and also increase their ability to bear pain. The more a person does spiritual practice, the lesser he or she suffers later. If spirituality could not make you good, at least it can stop you being bad. Spiritual Quotient (SQ) is the missing dimension of life and frustration, intolerance and suffering of contemporary life stems from lack of spiritual health. S.Q. helps in maintaining a balanced state of mind and elevates our perspective about life and people around us.
Unity
Spirituality tells us to embrace all humanity and human suffering as one. Our world is in need of human Unity. We are connected to each other with a silken thread of love that is the core of human existence and doctor’s ethics. A doctor needs to embrace every one, who comes to him in a spirit of love, tolerance and oneness and then treat them of their physical ailments. It will boost the trust of the patients and ensure their fast recovery. But it is not enough to tell others to practice Unity and peace, but we must live it ourselves, if we want our words to be effective. In order to achieve it, we should adopt the following simple principles of spirituality.
Clearing our hearts
The first step towards spirituality is that we should make sure that our hearts are clear of any bias, hatred and prejudice for others, who we think are different from us. We must develop true love in our hearts for all people. We must eliminate prejudice and discrimination from our heart and mind.
If you feel hatred towards any group, we cannot hide it for long, it is bound to come out from our lips or show on our faces. Our actions will speak even louder than our words. Thus we can serve the humanity by clearing our hearts of any animosity towards them. When we clean the chamber of our heart from any prejudice for others, then only God can reside there. God is love and God loves us unconditionally. God is all encompassing and embraces all creation as one family. That love will enter our heart when we keep it clear of any bias and negative thoughts towards others.
Watching our words
We can provide solace to the suffering humanity by making sure our words express appreciation and tolerance for all. We need to watch our words lest we injure any heart. Do our words give them hope & understanding or they create dissatisfaction and coldness. Loving caring words that make people feel comfortable bring them closer to us. We need to become living examples of sweet ,compassionate and loving speech.
Living it through our actions
Doctors have a challenging life. Everyday we are faced with choices. Are we going to do things that bring people together or tear them apart? We often have to work on committees or make decisions on policy matters. Do we promote policies that promote love and tolerance towards people or, do they perpetrate more prejudice and discrimination among people? At every opportunity we should aim at inspiring the people with whom we work to make decisions and take actions that promote faith and Unity rather than diversity. If I am honest, I must be honest in my words and deeds.
Meditation and Human Unity
One of the most effective methods to make unity a living reality in our own hearts is through meditation. Spending sometime daily in silent meditation help us to communicate with our true self and the divine power that created us. Those moments of meditation are filled with peace, bliss and love. As we enter the inner sanctum of our hearts, we find that there is a divine light within us, that is called soul, spirit or energy that is the living entity in us.
Our Divine father, creator to whom we can give any name viz. God, Allah, Wah a Guru, God Father Shiva or any name you love, too is point of light who is all loveful, merciful, ever pure, full of all virtues, all knowledgefull, blissful, Almighty Authority. Then the realisation dawns on us that the same light that is within us is in all other human beings too. We start to recognise that like me all others also have the same divine light within them and that all belong to the the same creator/ Godfather. Then the outer differences of caste, Creed, religion that separate us begin to dissolve. This divine light called soul, Rush or energy is expressed by many different outer coverings, each beautiful in its own way. We start to see all life as one. When we begin to have love for all, a transformation occurs within us. Behaviour towards others changes. We become humble in our dealings. We begin to have understanding and compassion towards the idiosyncrasies and habits of others. We stop criticizing people in our minds. We realise that they are bound by the shrouds of ignorance and illusion of this world. We know that within them is the same soul, that is son of God and that it is only their mind and their state of spiritual ignorance that causes them to behave the way they do. In addition when we are so steeped in God’s Love and the bliss permeates as we do not want to be distracted from that rapturous state by petty thoughts of others.An attitude of boundless love, acceptance and understanding develops in us.
Criticizing others in our thoughts only pulls us away from the state of happiness that union with God brings. As our Thoughts will be filled with divine love of God, our words will become sweet and loving. We will not say anything unkind to anyone. People who come within our sphere will find only words of love and kindness. We will become sensitive to the hearts of others and will wish them no harm. I will never do anything to physically harm anyone. We will not become rude towards anyone, will have respect for the life of all living beings on earth. When this happens, we will be truly living human unity in our own lives.
