End User, First Provider..

Salam..

I'm back again! Nothing major to share in this entry.. Just another thought, and possibly after-thought, about my user-provider status in the rung of the ladder..


End User
Not many are familiar with this term in the first place.. Let us take a short stroll down Wikipedia-lane..

A lot of us are unaware that we are actually end-users in this ever-developing technological world.. Almost all of us are very fluent and familiar, and even some of us very well-versed, with Yahoo!, Google, Hotmail and others, but little that we know, we are actually using a product (or service) here.. Even by searching using these tools, we are actually promoting and (in a small but definite significant way) 'buying' the products but not even realising it..

For example, Yahoo! was born in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo.. Few months before that, they were graduate students at Stanford University.. Two years later, Yahoo! raised USD33.8 million in their first public offering, selling 2.6 million shares at USD13 each.. That's USD1.4 million every month and almost USD47,000 per day! Who are the users? US! Of course, not all of us are players in the stock and share fields, but this is just a rough calculation of how much they - or even we can - gain by being a provider..


Another example, in 1996, Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith created Hotmail, the first webmail service in the world.. Within the next 18 months, Hotmail reported to have over 18million users worldwide.. In the same month of the report, Hotmail was sold to Microsoft at a price tag of USD400 million! That's again USD740,000 per day!

These are among the providers of service that we know of..

Unfortunately for us, we are at the lowest rung of the ladder - we are the USERS.. We use the products for our convenience, to help us do things the quick and easy way.. We use Hotmail and Yahoo! and Google on almost daily basis.. And these people are making profits in millions..

But, hey! There's no shame in being an end-user.. The world does not consist of multi-potential, super-intellectual individuals that can be ever self-sufficient.. Instead, we complement each other by specialising in different fields and providing different services and products.. Yes, Sergey Brin and Larry Page may have founded Google, but they still need Mr Barber to have a haircut! And they still need Starbucks to have coffee!

Looking from a healthcare professional point of view, I'm feeling less and less ashamed of being an end-user, despite the thought and ambition to be a supplier and provider.. Yes, when we look into the big scale of things, we will somehow feel "I could never be like Bill Gates, or any of the other people who invented Windows, Yahoo! or Google".. In fairness, by naming and comparing ourselves with individuals, we are actually looking at ourselves under a microscope and comparing with someone we look through a telescope! In the bigger scheme of things, they are not the world, but part of it.. It would be unfair to ourselves to compare like-for-like, as they are in a different field than our own playground..

Remember : All of us are part of this world, but none of us is the world!


First-Provider
Difficult as it is to speak for anyone, I will now blog on to raise my views regarding being a provider from a doctor's perspective..

Having worked in different specialties, it has come to a clear that even in a general hospital, that all doctors are indeed complementing each other.. This is an example of a complementing community on a somewhat small scale.. Referring people with diabetes to Endocrinologists, people with chronic airway disease to Respiratory Physicians, people with cancer to Oncologists, and people with terminal untreatable disease to Palliative Medicine are just among the examples of complementary medicine in the setting.. Even more than that, they are exactly examples of knowledge sharing among the ever-developing medical scientific world..

Many of you would think that I am again leading this entry towards an end-user perspective.. Au contraire, this leads towards a providers view..

Medicine is one of the most sought-after service, and by means of no comparison with any other fields.. I'm proud to say that I am part of it! We are the FIRST PROVIDER of the medical service and specialty in the setting that we are in - hospitals, hospices or general practices.. The decision of which antibiotics, what scans or what blood tests are the common 'conflicts' within a doctor's mind, having the patients' interest and care upfront.. And the art of making the decision does not come cheap.. Years of hard work in medical school, further drenching in sweat in the early years of work, more exams and tests, but above all, the experience that comes with all of that package is invaluable..

At the exact moment of making a decision, no Google, nor Yahoo!, nor Hotmail can be of help.. And at that precise moment, the doctor is the FIRST PROVIDER..

This is one of the simplest of examples of an end-user of the internet, being a first provider in another field of expertise.. There are many more.. Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) needing a haircut or even Malaysian Premier Pak Lah going out to have roti canai and teh tarik!


Complementary Lifestyle For Complementing Life
The conclusion is indeed rather simple and straight forward enough.. All of us are in one way an end-user, but also more importantly each of us is a first provider of some sort.. We complement each other by just being us, by being good at what we do..

I do believe that this notion is enough to help some of us (if not all) to re-arrange our telescopes and microscopes so that we do not see others as so big and ourselves being so small.. Instead, we should start focusing on how we can be a better provider of our service and/or products and stop feeling ashamed of being an end-user of another person's product or service..

Do not be too worried about the money they are making, because money can't buy happiness.. But be very worried if you are regressing from your specialty and skills that you may not be able to provide a good service.. The basis of feeling accomplished and closure is at the feeling of being satisfied with the job you have done or the service you have presented.. Even Mastercard can't beat that! Priceless!

Remember :

We are all End-Users of someone's product
But we are also Providers of our product to someone else

Well, that is all for this entry.. A little thought to ponder..

See you all again sometime soon!