Looking Back
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:01 pm
I've written this for publication in a medical journal, but I thought I would post it here also.
Looking Back
Oh, what a glorious romp it has been, diversity, challenge and scope,
Trying to offer what Medicine gives, and maybe a measure of hope;
Often no more than a listening ear, an empathic frown, or a smile,
Trying to do what I know must be done, and perhaps walk an extra half mile.
I've worked in the suburbs - the north and the south, the centre, the east and the west,
For people are people - the rich and the poor; I've worked with the cursed and the blessed.
I've argued with junkies (and usually lost), and learned not to argue at all,
And tried to avoid being hurt on the fringe when they've ended up dropping the ball.
I've listened to Kooris in lock-ups and prisons, perhaps just a stone's throw away
From well content people with houses and jobs who work in the sun, making hay.
I've seen men in cages claw madly like monkeys, their eyes almost bursting with fright,
Begging for something to help them survive another long, pitiless night,
And all this in Melbourne, the crown of the south, with its coffee, and poetry scene;
The civilised hub of urbanity's peak, with its parks and its gardens so green;
Rough concrete shelters, so much worse than prisons, often for weeks without end,
In places designed for a few days at most - no wonder they go round the bend.
Who but a doctor would see scenes like this? Police, of course. Maybe a priest.
Perhaps the odd youth worker witnesses also this vision of man as a beast.
Not many others, I'd wager on that. Not many others at all.
It's a horrible spectacle bound to confound, to sicken, disgust and appal,
And yet I feel privileged I've had a chance to see how the world really works.
It's only a little way under the skin the beast in humanity lurks.
My career in Medicine's not changed the world, and that is the way it must be,
But the places I've been, and the people I've met on the way, they have surely changed me.
Stephen Whiteside 17.01.3013
Looking Back
Oh, what a glorious romp it has been, diversity, challenge and scope,
Trying to offer what Medicine gives, and maybe a measure of hope;
Often no more than a listening ear, an empathic frown, or a smile,
Trying to do what I know must be done, and perhaps walk an extra half mile.
I've worked in the suburbs - the north and the south, the centre, the east and the west,
For people are people - the rich and the poor; I've worked with the cursed and the blessed.
I've argued with junkies (and usually lost), and learned not to argue at all,
And tried to avoid being hurt on the fringe when they've ended up dropping the ball.
I've listened to Kooris in lock-ups and prisons, perhaps just a stone's throw away
From well content people with houses and jobs who work in the sun, making hay.
I've seen men in cages claw madly like monkeys, their eyes almost bursting with fright,
Begging for something to help them survive another long, pitiless night,
And all this in Melbourne, the crown of the south, with its coffee, and poetry scene;
The civilised hub of urbanity's peak, with its parks and its gardens so green;
Rough concrete shelters, so much worse than prisons, often for weeks without end,
In places designed for a few days at most - no wonder they go round the bend.
Who but a doctor would see scenes like this? Police, of course. Maybe a priest.
Perhaps the odd youth worker witnesses also this vision of man as a beast.
Not many others, I'd wager on that. Not many others at all.
It's a horrible spectacle bound to confound, to sicken, disgust and appal,
And yet I feel privileged I've had a chance to see how the world really works.
It's only a little way under the skin the beast in humanity lurks.
My career in Medicine's not changed the world, and that is the way it must be,
But the places I've been, and the people I've met on the way, they have surely changed me.
Stephen Whiteside 17.01.3013
