Goodwill and Professional Fees

I just finished surgery to a 65 year old female with an inguinal mass. In the medical sense, there is nothing remarkable in this case. The woman hails from an outlying barrio in our town of San Jose (Batangas, Philippines). She was quite nervous with the procedure. After the operation, I had a warm talk with the relatives, assuring them that everything is OK and that the procedure went out fine. As I was about to leave, the patient's daughter approached me and handed me a basketful of eggs. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my professional fee. No kidding...Yes, EGGS!

In a society trapped between the rural and the cosmopolitan way of thinking, one can just smile and have mixed feelings with this goodwill gift. Being a city surgeon fixated with monetary rewards from paying patients and HMOs, and one who balances his bankbook like a trapeeze artist, I was held back. How can these eggs pay for my bills? Will it fill my gas tank? Will this send my child to a respectable school? Moreso, will I be able to eat all of them before they become rotten? I might have to redistribute them to a relative or a neighbor.

I remember the first time this happened to me. Seven years ago, when I was just starting to be surgeon, I was given a live goose inside a bag right at the door of the operating room. That patient, who I helped cure from a septic condition due to an obstructed bile duct stone, jumped the very moment she saw me , hugged me and handed the bag. I just realized later that she had been waiting for me the whole day. It has been a months after her operation. I would have forgotten about her had it not been a fact that she was almost dead when i fist saw her at the emergency room. The risk for death from an operation in that condition was unmistakably high. But surgery was the only way out. Armed with a knife, knowledge and a prayer, our team was succesful to have salvaged the patient out of danger. Her gratitude for her new life since then made her promise to me that I would be included in her prayers so that other people needing my help would be cured the same way she was healed.

I am not new to people giving gifts in lieu of professional fees. It just happens and they do exist. I just think about the trouble they had in preparing for these gifts. It could have been their food for the night, it could have been their earnings for the week, they could have exchanged it for some of their precious stuff, it could have come from their savings, they could have travelled great distances just to get it for you. In short, giving these gifts could have really mattered a lot to them. And I have the capacity to take it for granted.

So whenever i encounter another these gifts, I take it with a smile with the lightness of my heart. These gifts might not equal our monetary expectations but they will remain to be precious in my heart. For it is the smile of a happy patient which rewards me the most.