Our Medical Education Minister perhaps thinks that he has got a pill for every ill, both real and imaginary. Just two days ago he has stated that he is considering the introduction of compulsory rural service for doctors. There is nothing new in what he proposes to do except that while his tribesmen who came before him talked of rural service only for doctors seeking employment with the government, he is now talking of it for all medicos, undergraduate or postgraduate, even before they get their degrees.

Before bringing in this scheme, which he perhaps mistakenly thinks is a novel one, let him first see what has been done about the scheme with the same name and purpose which had been launched some years ago by our government. Amid much hue and cry about improving the health of our villagers, hundreds of doctors were appointed by the government exclusively for rural service with strict provisions to ensure that they would not seek premature postings to cities and towns by devious means. But the stark truth is that almost all these doctors, before they could see what a village looks like, quickly found plum postings of their choice in cities entirely due to the patronage of politicians and the connivance of corrupt bureaucrats.

If an undergraduate medical student is to serve for a full year in a rural posting before getting the MBBS degree as the Minister now proposes, from where will he bring this extra time without lengthening the MBBS course which is already one of the longest professional courses. As it is, the present five year course is a hectic one with hardly any time in its academic calendar either to complete the portions set in the syllabus or to ensure sufficient practical experience in the wards before doctors are awarded their degrees.

This is followed by one full year of internship where doctors actually hone their professional skills. And for those doctors who wish to pursue post graduation, it is a matter of another three years before they leave the portals of the medical colleges dazed and befuddled, looking for life partners with whatever hair that is left on their heads already turning grey. With almost another year having been spent taking various entrance examinations between undergraduate and post graduate studies, this makes medical education a ten – year - long odyssey which is not very different from the one Homer wrote. By this time their former classmates in other professions, already with school - going children, would be busy making fortunes for their future.

With hardly enough time to eat, rest or sleep, between ward duties, mugging up of textbooks, reference of journals and writing a dissertation, the three year MD or MS post - graduate course is one of the toughest periods of a doctor’s education process. But I can understand Mr. Ramdas not knowing what life is all about for a medical post - graduate since he has never seen it from the inside. That is why perhaps he is so casual with his utterances which if implemented would only make smooth - flowing things in the medical curriculum go haywire.

And incidentally, has any politician or Minister given a serious thought to why most doctors try to avoid rural service, an accusation which I agree is not untrue? Living conditions in our villages are beyond the imagination of city folks and have to be seen and experienced to be believed. The quarters that are provided for rural doctors adjacent to their health centres are invariably of such poor standards that let alone any doctor, the Minister’s servants would refuse to stay there. Many have no running water facility and electricity is a luxury that can be had only during unearthly hours when it is of no use. Ordinary pleasures like television and ordinary amenities like a mixie, a refrigerator and an electric grinder which should make life a little easy for the doctors’ families become meaningless irritants.

The lack of opportunities to have friends of the same social status and spend some quality time relaxing with them is another factor that puts doctors off from opting for rural service. All these deterrents, if compensated by a substantial extra allowance that at least doubles their salaries during the period of rural service, would certainly encourage many doctors to brave the odds of village life. Since education of the children is a very important problem faced by rural doctors, if the government brings in a separate reservation in professional courses for children of doctors who have served in rural areas it will become one of the best motivating factors. Lest Mr. Ramdas thinks that these observations are coming as casual remarks from a “cityphile” doctor and writer, who has never served in a village, let me set the record right.

I am a doctor with post - graduate qualifications who chose to live and serve in a rural setup out of sheer love for such a life. Like Lord Rama of whom I am sure Mr. Ramdas is aware, who left his kingdom for the forest, I left the city soon after my marriage, with my wife who had never visited a village, on a self imposed exile of exactly fourteen years of rural service before I returned to the city in search of higher education for my children. Instead of indulging in the luxury of either living in a city with a more paying practice or lolling in the resort - like comfort of the coffee estate that I own, I consider those fourteen years not only as my most satisfying professional period but also as the most joyous years of my life.

I am not alone in my claims of having served in a rural area. There are hundreds of doctors who have served in villages commendably well for unusually long periods without anyone talking or writing about them even to ensure them their fair share of a little limelight in their lives. A few of my professional colleagues, some of them holding post - graduate qualifications, still visit villages on a regular basis and serve the people there without charging any fee as an act of true goodwill. The only sad thing is that whenever doctors refuse to serve in villages everybody talks bad about them and whenever they do, they remain unrecognised and unrewarded.

And if the government thinks that rural service should be made mandatory for doctors, why should a similar stipulation not be imposed on other professionals like engineers and lawyers? Our villagers are as much in need of their services as of doctors. While we are talking about it, how about a stint of compulsory rural service for our Ministers? Has anyone ever thought about it? Since India lives in its villages in the words of the Mahatma himself, and since our Ministers without any exception, including the ones holding the portfolio of Urban Development, always talk of rural development, why should it not be made mandatory for all our Ministers to live and serve us from our villages? It is there that their services are needed most and it is from there they should be expected to start all their good work.

But the government should stipulate that they should necessarily stay only in the Spartan accommodation with the bare facilities that they provide for rural doctors. If this is done I am sure much of the steam that we see in their grandiose plans and of - the - cuff utterances will fizzle out. Instead of talking of the kind of rural service that he is now envisaging which seems unworkable Mr. Ramdas can do much good to society by improving the health services in our villages with some practicable measures. Let him win the trust and goodwill of doctors by first appreciating the good that they are doing and then expect them to stand by him in his plans of providing better health care to our villagers. I agree he has good intentions and the dynamism to match them but he should proceed with caution and patience.

Being a Minister, he certainly has the power and means to make rural service attractive for doctors instead of imposing it on them with threats and warnings. That will not only ensure a long stay for him at the political batting crease but will also endear him to the masses and ensure him a cherished place in their memories.

Let me remind him over this perhaps insipid cup of tea that talking and doing are two different cups of tea altogether and he should choose the more useful of the two.