Image for representation.
Credit: PTI File Photo
It’s supposed to be a secret, but I’ll tell you anyway. We doctors do nothing. We only help. And encourage the doctor within. Albert Schweitzer
The recent strikes by doctors in West Bengal, India, have brought back attention to the challenges faced by healthcare professionals worldwide. From Canada to Kenya, doctors have historically been at the forefront of social change, advocating for better healthcare systems, patient rights, and community well-being. As we reflect on these struggles, it’s clear that doctors are not just healers but also visionary leaders, entrepreneurs, and agents of transformative change. Even West Bengal’s first Chief Minister, B C Roy, was a doctor who created some of the fundamental constructs of society in the region.
This should not be surprising given a global legacy of clinician activism. The 1962 Saskatchewan Doctors’ Strike in Canada fought for universal healthcare, the 1975 California Medical Association Strike in the United States pushed for better reimbursement rates, and the 1984 British Medical Association Strike in the United Kingdom seeking improved working conditions were early examples. More recently, strikes at the National Health Service (NHS) were also indirectly alluded to in the 2024 Darzi Report in the UK. In addition, there are also other instances in the Global South of clinician activism, strikes, and social change, for example, in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, or Kenya in recent years for health equity and better working conditions.
The Indian clinician intervention stories here veer recently in the last four decades around clinician entrepreneurialism. Examples here include the usual much-acknowledged names: Aravind Eye Hospital, founded by Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy, has for many years now provided affordable eye care to millions. Dr G N Rao and his work with L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad are of a similar flavour. So are Narayana Hrudalaya and Dr Devi Shetty’s efforts in affordable cardiac care. HCG (HealthCare Global) Oncology, led by Dr B S Ajaikumar, offering comprehensive quality cancer care has also been a similar disruption in the oncology space. There are also for-profit units with clinician founder antecedents. More recently, clinician entrepreneurs are making forays in digital health in India.
These examples demonstrate doctors’ potential as Schumpeterian entrepreneurs, driving social change through sustainable, scalable healthcare solutions. Activism seems to be less in vogue, though. As doctors continue to strive and strike for better working conditions in West Bengal, their efforts should and could ultimately spill over to better patient care and healthcare systems. We must recognise their broader role in shaping society. There are some fundamental reasons for that. First, advocacy and activism can usher in clinician-mandated policy changes and more patient-centric healthcare legislation. Second, medical professionals can usher in the use of cutting-edge treatments, technologies, and healthcare models while also making sure positive normative behaviour eradicates frivolous (and many times corrupt) clinician practices such as irrational prescribing, as my own research shows elsewhere in the combination drugs and medical stents context in India. Third, clinicians can also empower communities through health literacy, enhancing health-seeking behaviour, enabling disease prevention, and wellness initiatives. Finally, clinician leadership can inspire and mobilize others to drive social change beyond just the medical sector, for example, in education or in building more gender-empowered and sustainable net-zero societies.
The strikes by doctors in West Bengal, India, thus serve as a reminder of the medical community’s power to effect broader social change going beyond entrepreneurialism. While digital technologies or AI are bringing in other forms of disruption in medicine, global communities both in the rich and poor world are struggling today with massive trust deficits in health systems, especially after a once-in-a-century pandemic. This has resulted in violence against clinicians in contexts like China and India. Paying attention to doctors as social change agents can ultimately lead us to a healthier, more equitable world.
That could take us back to our inner Albert Schweitzer, given his thoughts above urging us all to find the doctor within.
(The writer is a Professor of Development Economics, Innovation, and Global Health at the University of Sussex, UK)