What follows is the article I wrote for my school magazine which somehow ended up on the desk of an Edinburgh Evening News reporter and resulted in them also writing an article about the work we are doing here in India. It is very humbling that what little we are doing creates such a stir!
Hi all,
It seems having a father on the staff is good for pushing buttons and raising your profile!! I’ve always wanted my five minutes of fame, and here they are!
My Name is Adam Black, I am a 32 year old General Practitioner, but I’m currently taking three years out of my career to work in an HIV/AIDS clinic in India.
I moved to George Watson’s College from the islands of Orkney off the north coast of Scotland in 1988 at the age of fourteen. It was a bit of a culture shock, coming from a small island school to such a large city school. Watson’s offered so many more opportunities, and I think I made the most of the extra curricular activities.
I was pretty insensitive and arrogant as a teenager, and I fear many of my peers found me pretty insufferable! (sorry to any of you reading this now!). My immaturity continued when I went to Glasgow university to study medicine. Instead of settling down and hitting the books, I spent too much time partying and failing exams. At one time I had a meeting to discuss whether I was going to be kept on as a student, or whether they would expel me. I took a long hard look at myself, and pretty much changed the way I was living my life overnight.
I passed medicine, did various hospital posts (Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Geriatrics, Accident and Emergency, Paediatrics and Psychiatry). I then completed GP Registrar training, and passed my GP post-graduate exams in 2004.
As part of my training at medical school, I spent one month in Chennai, India working in an HIV/AIDS awareness program. At that time I realized how fortunate I had been in life- to have been given such an easy ride. I was born into a loving family, in a rich country, went to a GREEEEAAAT school! But the patients I was treating had nothing. They were often sold into prostitution by their fathers who did not want the burden of paying a wedding dowry for them. Many others were not able to feed their children, as they could not find alternative work. They had been born into slavery to poverty, and impossible life choices, by their surroundings.
I realized that but by the grace of God, I too could have been born into exactly the same situation, but instead I had never wanted for anything. It was therefore not a difficult choice for me to make to decide to take three years out of my affluent life to help redress the balance a little. I know that when I return to the West I will still be very comfortable, and my life will not really have suffered. On the contrary, I have had an amazing opportunity to grow as an individual, and learn to count my blessings, and be really contented with what I have.
In the West, it is all too easy to focus on things like the latest mobile phone, or your alloy wheels, or getting the next promotion. There is nothing wrong with these things, but there is also so much more to life, like being grateful that we have a roof over our heads, food to eat, or that we do not have HIV.
It all depends where your focus is.
If all people who could afford it gave 10% of their salary each month to social causes, they wouldn’t actually miss the money- they would quickly become accustomed to that money not being there (people spend what they have). However, what a difference it would make to all those who have nothing.
Poverty crushes the human spirit. Three billion people (half the world’s population) live on less than $2 per day, unable to meet their basic human needs. Malnutrition, lack of health care, substandard housing, and illiteracy breed desperation, disease and daily suffering. Poverty traps future generations in a vicious cycle without hope or opportunity.
Here in India I am by no means the answer to the problem, but I do what I can, and as other people benefit from my being here, so do I. I know that my life will never be the same again, and my outlook and perspective will be forever richer.
Thanks for listening.
Adam Black
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