So well-educated yet SO
RUDE
People in positions of authority must show some tact
By Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
tnp Jan 23 2008
FIRST, a too straight-talking principal. Now, a tactless
doctor.
When Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew reflected in a dialogue on 11 Jan
about how far away Singapore is from being a gracious society,
surely he wasn't thinking in light years?
He might as well have.
We are hardly heading in gracious-society direction any time soon,
especially not if principals and doctors are throwing stumbling
blocks along the path.
To quote one of my elders, 'Study until so high, can be so
rude!'.
Of late, characters who should, in the normal course of day, set
exemplary roles for us to follow, have shown their true colours.
And it ain't pretty.
Could the school principal who admonished the N-levels students to
go to ITE instead of opting for O levels have been more
tactful?
Could the doctor who told off a parent in front of her child have
been more polite?
Could such highly-educated people have
been less of what our grandparents used to call 'kurang ajar' and
'bo ka si' (no manners and no respect)?
Teachers and doctors are people you can count on, ordinarily. What
more the head of a learning institution, and one who took a vow to
administer to the sick?
Where do you get off being cavalier with students' self-esteem and
patients' feelings?
If professionals can exhibit such behaviour, what are they telling
the generation after?
Certainly, some of us lesser mortals are at the mercy of such
professionals.
In the US, such people are wont to be described as 'Nazi', perhaps
too liberally, and worse by people with no sense of history.
The belligerent soup chef in Seinfeld was dubbed 'Soup Nazi' by
Jerry Seinfeld who's entitled by way of Jewish jokes.
The curmudgeon proprietor of rental videos here who suffered no
fools was named 'Video Nazi'.
There's a 'Doc Nazi' I know who runs a clinic at an HDB block. He's
so called because of his seriously wanting bedside manner.
There'd been complaints that this doctor is unreasonably strict,
stroppy and impatient with patients.
Oh, stuff such as no talking in the clinic, how he will refuse to
see anyone without an identity card, and he only treats regulars on
Sundays.
DR HOUSE NO 2
The doctor is a terse man; over the telephone I could hear him
unsmiling. To consult him, I'd have to bring documentation of my
medical history, 'otherwise we'd have to start from the very
beginning' he said shortly. Oh-kay.
A white-haired gent, he is a Chinese from the US. He moved to
Singapore 16 years ago, to save lives.
'If I'd wanted to just make money I'd have stayed in
America.'
At the other end of his block is a bakery manned by an estate
old-timer.
'This area got many clever doctors, all very good one,' she
endorsed. (There are five on that street alone.)
'This doctor, people call him 'seow' but he is good. Cannot get
better, see him, can cure.
'Only his style is strict lah.
'When see him, you cannot speak. Don't talk first, after he finish
everything, then you can ask.'
Question is, with all the talk of bedside manners, can't a doctor
be good and gracious?
As our grandparents would say, 'Goodness gracious me, what have we
become?'
