Manipal pays tribute to all doctors — National Doctors' Day

Manipal Hospitals marks National Doctors' Day, observed on 1 July in memory of Dr B. C. Roy. The film opens with a message from the group's leadership on six decades in medical education and healthcare. Dr Bakshi, then Group Medical Director, follows with the passage below, on what it costs to become a doctor. What follows is an edited transcript of his remarks.

I want to start by reminding us of a message going around at the moment, prompted by Lionel Messi's retirement. A twenty-nine-year-old footballer has just retired, having made millions of dollars and won international fame. Meanwhile a great many thirty-year-old super-specialty students are still slogging it out on the wards, doing night duties, still training for a career they have not formally begun.

So I want to acknowledge the hardship and the long duties that we as doctors go through to learn the skills we eventually practise. We put our families on hold. We make enormous personal sacrifices. And once we become doctors, yes, society and patients pay us back with respect and gratitude. But not many people stop to think about how difficult it is to become one in the first place.

I want to thank each of you for having chosen to become a doctor.

On behalf of Manipal Health Enterprises, and particularly from the Group Medical Director's office, I want to place on record my best wishes and my sincere thanks for everything you have given this institution over the years. This is a day to celebrate, and also a day to rededicate ourselves to the service of the community, while meeting what the organisation asks of us: clinical excellence, patient centricity, and ethical practice.

A very happy Doctors' Day to all of you.