Fitness Certification

When the civic body employs anyone, a certificate of fitness is required. When I had got into the service ages ago, they had sent me for fitness test too. The medical officer was a dark and stout woman of forty or so. She asked me to to the end of the queue and wait my turn. There were a lot of class 3 and 4 persons waiting, who needed a job more than I did. They had reached there before I did, so in all fairness they should be checked up first. So I went to the end of the line and stood there. That she was just M.B.B.S. and I was M.D. did not matter to me. She was going to certify me fit, and I was going to do what she wanted me do. But the local clerical people and servants thought I should be treated better because I was a doctor, to be appointed as a class 1 officer. So they got me to the head of the queue and made me stand there. “Why have you come here when I asked you to go to the end of the queue?” the medical officer shouted. Before I could answer her, the people who had got me there told her they had got me there, and for what reason. “OK” she grunted “come inside.” I followed her. She looked at my conjunctiva. “Do you have ear problem or a hydrocele?” she barked. “No” I said. “OK. Get a CBC and chest radiograph done and come back.” I got those done and I was certified fit. I always wondered what a hydrocele had to do with it, and how could she rely on my statement that I did not have one. She did not even touch me, leave alone checking my heart or lungs. Well, that was the way things were. Today a potential employee came looking for my Assistant Professor for being certified fit for employment. I found the doctor she wanted and the doctor certified her. The employee-to-be came back after half an hour, with a form. “They sent me back” she complained “asking me to get this form filled by the doctor.” I called the said doctor and checked in the meantime what was not filled by our doctor. They had given her a form for ophthalmic check up, with all details of eye examination printed on it. Someone had written ‘Gyn’ with a pen on it. “This is a form for ophthalmic check up” I said “not gynecological check up.” “That is what they always do” another Assistant Professor standing nearby said. “Writing ‘Gyn’ on it does not make it a Gynecological checkup form” I said. “We have to write our findings in the blank space” the doctor informed me. The employee-to-be got the necessary gynecologic details filled on the ophthalmologic form and went away. “This is the way things are” I said to no one in particular and went back to my office to continue with my work.