Dr. Ruoivas – The Story Of Him In Me
In the mid 19th century, there was a brilliant surgeon who had unmatched skill and understanding of the human body and used this talent to save very many lives. However, due to the difficulties of international travel and communication, he was constrained and only able to save very few lives outside the shores of his own country.
He then decided that it was a lot more efficient use of his time to dedicate his life to teaching people to be as skillful as he was. He, therefore, started a school of surgery!
His logic was rather simple: As a surgeon he could only perform one surgery at a time and if he had to travel by ship to other countries, he could only save a handful of lives a year. But in training many others, he could, in a manner of speaking, be in a lot of places at the same time and multiply the impact he has.
Dr. RuoiVas, as he was known, got a few equally brilliant students and spent his days training them on the delicate skill of surgery. Though he was known to have performed some of the most complicated surgeries known at the time, he had to “reduce” himself to performing simple surgeries so that his young trainees start with and get experience on the basics that form a solid foundation.
He always told his students that with the way the world was going in technology, he anticipated a time when traveling cross continent would take just a few days and they would each be able to perform hundreds of surgeries a year.
Dr. RuoiVas had a major flaw though: he had a bit of a temper that sent him into a violent rage but luckily, the trigger for this temper existed entirely outside his medical field and never showed up at work. Outside work though, he was known to have beaten up quite a few people every now and then. The “DOCTOR” was a perfect professional but the man, RuoiVas, had his personality flaws.
All his student knew about this but understood that that part of him was never going to interact with them.
This made it easy for them to understand what he meant by “I want you all to be, not just as good as me, but much better than me; to do greater things than I have done”. They all knew and understood that the “me” he referred to was the “DOCTOR” part of him and not his personality that contained the flaws. So, to the students, it was a massive compliment when they helped people and got feedback like: “you remind me of Dr. RuoiVas”
After a few years under Dr. RuoiVas’s tutelage, almost all the trainees were now full-fledged, well-trained, surgeons and they had only one mission: Go into all the world, train more surgeons and save as many lives as possible.
Though none of them associated with the flaws in the personal temper character traits of Dr. RuoiVas but each of them had earned their badge of honor and each added the prefix “Dr.” to their names.
The Dr. in Dr. RuoiVas had successfully been replicated and one key success factor was the understanding that the doctor in him had a completely different skill and demeanor from the temper issues RuoiVas grew up with.
Dr. RuoiVas was indeed right and as his students spent time preforming life-saving surgeries, they also made time to train people to be just like them and as technology improved, these grand-students of Dr RuoiVas were able to perform, collectively, Thousands of surgeries daily across the entire world and they touched far more lives than Dr. RuoiVas could ever have and his main wish had been fulfilled: “Go into all the world, train more surgeons and save as many lives as possible and do greater works than I did”
Sometimes, the surgeons get themselves in a fix and get asked “what will RuoiVas do?” and on one occasion, one of them answered and said:
“For what you did, RuoiVas would’ve beaten the daylight out of you, but I am not replicating RuoiVas, I am replicating the doctor in him. And the doctor in him would still perform the surgery on you and save you, despite your terribly bad behaviour”. Or sometimes, the learned doctors emphasized that Dr RuoiVas was constrained in doing surgeries outside his immediate environment due to the limitations of his time, but today, we are much freer than he was. He had to concentrate on teaching to develop people that would perform the ACTIONs he was constrained from. We, that can, should therefore ACT more while those that want to TEACH should do so.
Dr. RuoiVas bought us freedom to be the best version of himself not to be tied to his limitations!
And the question “what would RuoiVas do?”, was seen for what it was, an absolutely misdirected priority. The question: “Despite all that has happened and how you feel, what would the doctor here today do to positively impact as many lives as possible?” was what gave the atmosphere for deep reflection and positive energy; it was always, a call to action that saved lives!
To replicate the Doctor is to be the impact that’s needed in your own time; not to live as he would have in his time.
Too many people are limiting themselves based on the limitations of the time of the doctor despite the fact that those limitations long ceased to exist!
This error is understandable though as many of the doctors today misunderstood the intention of Dr.RuioVas & they are using the same unedited manual he used & not factoring the changes in time, tech, language and intention.
END…for now
