SKEPTICISM

Earlier today, as I was scanning through the channels, I found an interesting anime that drew my attention. The anime was entitled Black Jack. It is a story of a surgeon, named Dr. Black Jack, who is not licensed to practice but became a world class, miracle-working surgeon. Unfortunately, his works are not recognized by the medical association due to the lack of license. Anyway, in this episode, he was approached by two people. The first to approach him was a young licensed doctor who brought an herb that can assist a patient in increasing stamina. He asked the doctor if they could conduct a study about this herb and gave him some inputs about the doctor’s usage of the herb. Without hesitation, the doctor declined saying that the no one in the association would recognize it due to his lack of license. The second person to approach him was a filmmaker who wishes to document the doctor’s surgery on a disease said to be incurable. The said disease is present on the filmmaker’s son. After hearing Dr. Black Jack’s successful operation of this disease, the filmmaker decided to have his son undergo the said operation as well as film the whole procedure for the rest of the medical world to see. At first, the good doctor declined but after offering a generous amount, the doctor accepted the task. After the whole procedure was done, the film was completed as well. The film was then played in front of film critics, audiences, and medical association representatives. When the film was over, the director approached the MAR’s and asked them to have the film shown to all the medical professional of the country and the world. The immediate response was skepticism and the procedure was looked down. As a result, the Doctor had the film duplicated and had his shots removed and replaced by a licensed doctor. The licensed doctor and the filmmaker didn’t agree to this, but the Dr. Black Jack reasoned that it is to help save more people. With that, the episode ended.

My summary of the story is quite lengthy but the main reason I brought this up is because of the lurking problem that existed in the said episode. The episode bore an important issue that needs to be taken into consideration. As medical professionals, we tend to be very proud of our achievements and license turning us into bias individuals. We become bias towards procedures that have not been proven by science or anyone in the field of medicine. But what if, just what if, a person who isn’t a doctor discovers an effective cure on an incurable disease, such as aids, should we be so skeptical about it? Often times, skepticism is the automatic response to this kind of situation. But if we stop and think, shouldn’t we give that discovery a benefit of a doubt and, instead of being bias, shouldn’t we conduct studies to prove or disprove the claims of the discovery? Jumping in to a conclusion that something isn’t good without trying or studying it ourselves is, for me, quite inappropriate and is driven only by pride. Therefore, by correcting this attitude we may discover a lot of things or improve things that may assist not only the medical world but also the rest of the world. I strongly believe that this approach doesn’t only apply to medical professionals but also to other professions as well.