MEDICINE BUDDHA

A Personal Story About Dr. Yeshi Dhonden

The former physician to His Holiness Dalai Lama, Dr. Yeshi Dhonden is one of the foremost Tibetan doctors of the world. We met in the United States. A year and a half after witnessing his great diagnostic skills both on rounds and at various clinics, including my office in Massachusetts, I decided to go to India at his invitation. In the spring of 1983, just as I was arriving exhausted after a thirty-six-hour journey, he announced that we were leaving the very next day to go to Bombay. Dr. Dhonden is very well known and highly respected in India, and as a result hundreds of people come to see him at one time. During the next two weeks, we saw 1,096 patients.

My job during this visit was to do triage - to manage the patients coming in and out of the office - but at some point there was just no more room and it seemed humanly impossible to see one more patient. One day there was a knock on the door. Standing there was a very forlorn-looking man, slumped over and exhausted, holding in his arms his frail, pale eleven-year-old daughter. With tears in his eyes he told me she had leukemia and that it had taken them days to travel there. Apparently the outside office had already informed him that there was no possible way for Dr. Dhonden to see them, but he wouldn't give up. "Couldn't you please find room for her to be seen?" he begged. I didn't know what to say. We were so overwhelmed, there were so many people sitting in the hospital waiting room without appointments, and in the office with Dr. Dhonden there were always two or three patients waiting. I looked at him and said, "I am really sorry, I just don't see how we can fit one more person into the schedule because we are already seeing ten times more than we planned on." At that moment, Dr. Dhonden, who obviously was very busy with other patients and doesn't even speak English, somehow understood what I was saying and beckoned to me from across the room to let the man in. I was stunned but I did it, and he never mentioned the incident.

Later, somebody approached me to invite Dr. Dhonden, his pharmacist, his translator and myself to their home for dinner. This often happens when Dr. Dhonden travels in India because it is considered a great honor, like a blessing, to have him in one's home. I checked with Dr. Dhonden and he said yes, so that evening we went to this house. To my shock, when we arrived, we found thirteen people sitting in the living room waiting to see Dr. Dhonden as patients. It was at the end of the day and Dr. Dhonden had not stopped working for one minute. I became very upset and said to the host, "How could you do such a thing? Dr. Dhonden has been working so hard, you invited us to dinner, and you have all these patients to be seen." Then I went into the bedroom and started to cry. Right there and then, Dr. Dhonden came in after me and said very strongly: "How could you be so upset and angry with them? You can't do that. They are patients. They come for my help. A doctor has a responsibility to help a patient when they are asked." And then he left me to return to them. After composing myself, I followed. He saw all the patients first and then we had dinner.

Although I had witnessed Dr. Dhonden with hundreds of patients in the US, there was no comparison to this introduction to Tibetan clinics in India. Indeed, that visit began chiseling and reshaping my own definition and understanding of what it means to practice love and compassion, essentials for being a good doctor. All my life I've been a helper and I have always gone the extra mile, but Dr. Dhonden showed me what the real stretch is. Through his untiring example over the last nineteen years, he has shown me again and again how to go the one-millionth mile.

-Marsha Woolf, NYC, '00

an excerpt from Buddhist Acts of Compassion compiled and edited by Pamela Bloom.

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About Dr. Yeshi Dhonden
Books by Dr. Yeshi Dhonden
Excerpts from "Healing from the Source"
Excerpts from "Health Through Balance"
Research and Clinical Trials