A recent report of an Australian doctor requesting for a reward in return for treatment rendered to a fellow passenger is a revelation on the true mindset of doctors today. Even the Australian Medical Association(AMA) agrees that doctors should be compensated by airlines for services rendered. How greedy and calculative can one get?

Being a doctor is unique in a sense that we are bound to bump into a medical emergency in the least expected of places. It is not about being on call round the clock as was argued but rather a sense of duty, as a doctor. A sense of satisfaction when we are available at another's time of need, will usually suffice.

When a doctor decides to treat another, for example in an airline, it would be considered volunteering. One could decline to act but then it would only bear down on one's conscience. It is such conscience that makes doctors unique. It should be a reaction rather than a conscious decision.

I am ashamed that the AMA has defended a fellow doctor when all it has done is to reveal a decaying moral value of doctors today. Are we blood thirsty vampires out for more blood? Do we no longer accept a simple thank you as a sufficient gesture? Or are we becoming like lawyers, forever deceiving a gullible public?

Perhaps we should include in the Hippocratic Oath that one should treat without any pre conditions. But which doctor actually remembers the full content of the Hippocratic Oath anyway!!