If God allows us to live long enough, I will not be sur­prised to see a child slap­ping his dad without remorse due to the madness engulfing our society.

Most Ghanaians would love their children to become Med­ical Doctors which they view as prestigious careers. In fact most Doctors have conduct­ed themselves well over the years and so have created a good reputation for the pro­fession, although it must be emphasised that there have been some incidents involving medical Doctors which have tarnished the reputation of the profession.

In fact some of the inci­dents have been very horrible leading to needless loss of lives which makes you wonder if those Doctors were indeed qualified to be in that sensi­tive profession.

However on the whole, public perception has been very positive and Doctors are held in high esteem in our society.

Recently, a public statement was issued by the Ghana Med­ical Association and tongues have started wagging. This is due to the fact that a Doctor’s job is a very sensitive one.

A mistake by a medical officer can either make or unmake a person. If a teach­er makes a mistake, it can easily be corrected without it destroying any life. If an accountant makes a mistake, it can always be corrected.

Money may be lost in the process but when the mistake is detected, the money can be retrieved so in a sense, noth­ing has gone wrong. However, if a Doctor performs surgery using the wrong x-ray, as happened to an elderly man a few years ago, the damage caused, can never be reme­died.

Therefore for the Gha­na Medical Association to announce that some of its members come to work under the influence of alcoholic substances etc. is very, very, worrying.

Can you imagine an intox­icated person performing surgery on you and you are forced to ask, what is happen­ing?

This brings to mind a joke about a man who had hernia and went to the hospital for it to be resolved. This man apparently had a challenge with the English language but did not want people to know that.

Therefore when the Doctor came to his bed and picked up the chart attached to his bed, which had mistakenly been swapped with someone’s own, he asked the patient, “Castra­tion, why do you want to be a priest?”

The patient smiled and responded, “Yes castration”. He was then wheeled into the theatre and when he woke up at the ward after the surgery, he felt light, down there and sensed something was really wrong.

He soon realised that he had lost what makes him a complete man. Someone’s mistake and his own proud attitude had cost him dearly. The report also mentioned drug abuse and that really scared me.

Who in his right mind would allow a wee smoker to per­form surgery oh him? My brother told me of a surgery he had abroad and when the doctors came around him, one of them was rasta-haired with a ring in his ear and he told me that he nearly got up from the bed but remembered that if he was not qualified, they will never allow him to prac­tise as a medical officer so he kept his cool.

There have been stories of pieces of surgical equipment being left in the tummy of patients by medical person­nel and so for the association to lament this situation of decline in professionalism is deeply worrying.

Some bad nuts are really tarnishing the image of the profession and now you hear of sexual harassment. How low can it get? I am an advo­cate for restricting gynaecol­ogy to only females, given the sexual harassment complaints.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah