There was once a young boy who was forced by his parents to take up a career in medicine.
This boy may have been reluctant but he was no fool ! He took all his exams as one would take a harmless anti-biotic capsule, and in no time acquired a license to write Rx.
In the ensuing fifteen years he wrote Rx not less than one hundred and eighty thousand times. But not even once this thought occur in his doctored head : to find out if he could write something more substantial than this two lettered suffix.
This GP, as was the custom, called himself a doctor – not knowing, neither caring to know that a doctor is the one who knows !
Who knows, whether this definition was actually known to any one of the twenty seven thousand practising GPs in the city !
This our GP had one weakness. He was a compulsive sleeper. But to his credit, one would have to say : he had a masterly skill to diagnose diseases and to examine patients while he was asleep. In fact, it was a well known fact that large pharmaceutical companies owed their spectacular innovations to this ability of sleep diagnosis that our dear GP possessed, and many more were trying to emulate.
Then one day, a very strange thing happened. The government decided to set up an expert panel in the ministry of health to study the phenomenon of sleep. “ In knowing about sleep were the clues to obtaining an evolved (read developed) status” maintained the members of the government think tank.
And it was quite inevitable and obvious that our dear GP was nominated as the chairman of this august panel. Who else would have been more qualified ? A ‘doctor’ who had pioneered the art of Rx writing in sleep was considered to be the most suitable choice !
The panel met regularly and spent many sleepless nights, trying to unveil the mysteries of that blissful phenomenon called sleep ! But success was elusive. Decoding the secrets of SLEEP was turning into an impossible dream ! Almost a nightmare !
Every trick that was known to the learned fraternity was tried : ECGs, Ects, CT scans, MRIs, ETC. ETC. --- they all were applied. But to no avail. The ‘sleepy giant’ would not wake up. The panel members were getting restless. Government was secretly contemplating to abandon the project. Our GP was in a grave danger of losing his reputation-and also his roaring practice. Something had to be done ! and real quick !
Our hero did some deep thinking. An idea dawned on him one night. “these pharmaceutical companies owe me a great deal. Let me take their help in this hour of crisis” he reasoned.
The largest drug company came to his rescue. In fact, the company saw in this too, a great business opportunity .
Soon, this drug company launched a wonder drug. The claim was that if this drug was administered to a person who was sleeping, he would blurt out his inner thoughts ! ( Actually this was merely a marketing gimmick , a sales ploy, as it was already known to many non-GP practitioners of life that a man is virtually sleeping when he is ‘actually’ awake, and very much ‘awake’ when he is seemingly sleeping !)
The launch was successful.
The august panel borrowed the concept, rather gratefully, and submitted its one line report on findings :
SLEEP IS ONLY A FIGMENT OF OUR IMAGINATION
Government was immensely pleased.
The pharmaceutical company had made a spectacular kill in the market place!
And our sleepy GP went back to his now even more successful practice—of diagnosing in his sleep – and writing Rx, many more times in his blissful slumber !
