In China as well as in Japan, medicine was said to be a benevolent art. As a matter of fact, it is a healing art throughout the world. It has become a money-counting art in an ultramodern Taiwan.
When asked why they wanted to be doctors some 50 years ago, medical students would never hesitate to say they wished to follow in the footsteps of Albert Schweitzer. Nowadays, few would like to go to the Congo jungles to heal the sick. Of course, those who said they would like be the next Schweitzer liked to make money. As a matter of fact, that was practically the sole reason for most of them to study medicine, but at the very least, they looked up to the Belgian doctor as their role model. No one likes to make a pretense any more.
… but the fact is that doctors have forgotten medicine is not just a healing art but a benevolent art as well. Doctors are now more interested in making more money by prescribing unneeded medication and performing uncalled-for surgery or in making self-aggrandizing publicity to gain fame, that is bound to bring them wealth.
That must be the reason why doctors at the Bureau of National Health Insurance studied the relationship of life and death with people’s zodiac signs. … It may be high time for medical schools across the country to add an astrology course to their curriculum so that their students may learn how to turn medicine into a truly money-counting art.
Medicine is a benevolent art
by The China Post news staff
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/2008/01/14/138911/Medicine-is.htm
In China as well as in Japan, medicine was said to be a benevolent art. As a matter of fact, it is a healing art throughout the world. It has become a money-counting art in an ultramodern Taiwan.
When asked why they wanted to be doctors some 50 years ago, medical students would never hesitate to say they wished to follow in the footsteps of Albert Schweitzer. Nowadays, few would like to go to the Congo jungles to heal the sick. Of course, those who said they would like be the next Schweitzer liked to make money. As a matter of fact, that was practically the sole reason for most of them to study medicine, but at the very least, they looked up to the Belgian doctor as their role model. No one likes to make a pretense any more.
Taiwan now has a national health insurance program, though our small island state isn’t wealthy enough to afford it. And doctors manning the Department of Health seem oblivious to a surge in tuberculosis, which will assume epidemic proportions, if not duly checked. What about dengue fever? The Japanese placed it under very effective control with their low-tech strategy. They introduced good mosquito nets and released lots of medaka, tiny freshwater fish that feed on mosquito larvae, into rice paddies and ponds to make the endemic disease virtually disappear. It came back toward the end of the Second World War, but threatens to start an epidemic in southern Taiwan every summer. There certainly are excuses galore for the failure to get rid of tuberculosis and dengue fever, but the fact is that doctors have forgotten medicine is not just a healing art but a benevolent art as well. Doctors are now more interested in making more money by prescribing unneeded medication and performing uncalled-for surgery or in making self-aggrandizing publicity to gain fame, that is bound to bring them wealth.
That must be the reason why doctors at the Bureau of National Health Insurance studied the relationship of life and death with people’s zodiac signs. They could not read the palms of the dead. They therefore searched the birthdates of all those people who died in 2006, correlated them with how long they lived, and then came up with an Apollonian oracle. One prediction they made is that those people who are Capricorns, born between Dec. 22 and Jan. 19, would live longest. Two octogenarian celebrities were cited to bear out the prediction. Former President Lee Teng-hui, 85, and Formosa Plastics group founder Wang Yung-ching, 89!
It may be high time for medical schools across the country to add an astrology course to their curriculum so that their students may learn how to turn medicine into a truly money-counting art.