Ram and Shyam are twins. As they reach their mid-forties, they develop a knee pain. They go to the same orthopaedist, who does an X-Ray and diagnoses both with Osteoarthritis.
According to WebMD,
The simplest way to describe osteoarthritis is that it’s wear and tear on the cartilage of your joints. This cushioning tissue is firm, thick, and slippery. It covers and protects the ends of bones where they meet to form a joint.
With osteoarthritis, there are changes in the cartilage that cause it to break down. When it breaks down, the bones rub together and cause damage and pain. Experts don’t know why this breakdown in cartilage happens. But aging, joint injury, being overweight, and genetics may be a part of the reason.
The doctor prescribes the same calcium therapy to both brothers.
Six months later, Ram is cured whereas Shyam is still hobbling with pain.
What gives?
The doctor prescribed the same tablets to both brothers. Being twins, they have the same genes and body constitution. If one brother’s pain went away, the other brother’s pain should have also gone away. But it did not.
Why didn’t the medicine work identically on both brothers?
I missed mentioning that, along with the medicine, the doctor advised physiotherapy: He told both brothers to do a series of exercises in the morning and evening.
Ram did the exercises. Shyam did not.
You must be wondering, how does exercise matter?
The human body is sentient. It absorbs ingredients in medicine only if it thinks it needs them – not because the doctor prescribed the medicine and the patient took them.
Both Ram and Shyam took the medicines. The medicines released nutrients into both their bloodstreams.
Since Ram did the prescribed exercises, he was fatigued; his body decided that it needed the nutrients and absorbed them from his bloodstream. Whereas, since Shyam did not do the exercises, he was not fatigued; his body did not find any need for rejuvenation and decided not to absorb the nutrients from his bloodstream.
The nutrients absorbed by Ram’s body acted on his cartilage and strengthened them. (Actually, worn out cartilage can’t be repaired, so what the nutrients really did was to slow down their degradation. Since that’s a bit technical, I’ll go with the easier-to-understand term “strengthened”). Over time, his pain subsided.
Since Shyam’s body did not absorb the nutrients, his cartilage remained degraded and Shyam’s pain stayed.
Ergo, same ailment, same constitution, same medicine, but one patient got relief and the other did not.
Let’s go back and have a closer look at what the doctor did.
He prescribed medicines for sure but, alongside that, he prescribed a physiotherapy regimen. The medicines contained the nutrients. The physiotherapy created the circumstances for the human body to absorb the nutrients in the medicine.
This is the hallmark of a great salesman. He does not force his product down the customer’s throat. Instead, he creates the environment in which the customer persuades himself to use his product.
Ergo, a good doctor is a great salesman.
Doctors and patients – and the society at large – may not see doctors in this light but I think it’s true.
Having spent a large portion of my career in sales, I naturally have a great regard for the function.
I’m not alone.
My #3 tip for 2018! I hope you are enjoying these? pic.twitter.com/98A3WScHzS
— Alok Kejriwal (@rodinhood) January 3, 2018
Since I believe that sales is one of the noblest professions around, my likening of doctors to salesmen is a compliment.
PS: In case you have noticed the near-total use of the masculine gender in this post, it’s because (a) this post is triggered by my observations with males, and (b) medicines are known to work differently between genders. Accordingly, all my protagonists are males. For the sake of consistency, I used the masculine gender for all the side characters as well. Ergo I eschewed gender-neutral terms like “salesperson” and “she/he” that I otherwise regularly use on this blog.
