Being a medical practitioner enables me to get in touch with

Host:
The rain had come and gone, leaving the city streets slick with reflections of neon lights and tail lamps, the night humming faintly with the pulse of traffic and time. Inside an old teahouse, tucked between a hospital and a government building, the world was quieter—steam rising from cups, raindrops sliding down the windowpane, voices low and thoughtful.

At a table near the back, Jack sat with his sleeves rolled up, the smell of antiseptic still clinging faintly to him—a doctor by training, though his hands looked too weary for stethoscopes tonight. Jeeny sat across from him, her gaze curious and soft, the journalist’s recorder beside her like a silent witness.

Between them lay a folded clipping from an old interview, the edges yellowed with age, bearing the words of a man who’d crossed the border between healing bodies and healing nations:

“Being a medical practitioner enables me to get in touch with people, understand their problems, feel sympathetic towards them, and the natural thing is to want to help them, and if you become a politician and if you are successful, you can help them even more.” – Mahathir Mohamad

Jeeny:
(reading the quote aloud, her voice gentle, reflective)
It’s strange—how he connects medicine and politics like that. They sound like different worlds, but he makes them sound like one long extension of compassion.

Jack:
(half-smiles, eyes on the window)
That’s because, for him, they were. Medicine treats one patient at a time. Politics treats an entire society—at least, it’s supposed to.

Host:
The steam from their cups rose and curled like smoke, the air between them thick with both warmth and unspoken questions.

Jeeny:
(tilts her head)
Do you think he’s right, though? That the desire to help people naturally leads to politics?

Jack:
(leans back, weary smile)
Maybe in theory. But power changes the anatomy of compassion. In medicine, empathy saves lives. In politics, it gets edited into speeches.

Jeeny:
(softly)
You sound like you’ve seen both sides.

Jack:
(shrugs)
I’ve seen what happens when systems fail—patients dying not because of illness, but because of bureaucracy. Sometimes, the problem isn’t in the blood, it’s in the policy.

Jeeny:
(nodding slowly)
So maybe he’s right, then. Maybe the doctor who becomes a politician is just trying to heal a bigger patient—the nation.

Jack:
(smirks)
And maybe that’s the tragedy. The bigger the patient, the harder it is to hear the heartbeat.

Host:
The light outside flickered, streetlamps buzzing faintly against the wet night. The teahouse clock ticked softly, a rhythm that felt both alive and deliberate, like a pulse of conversation that refused to die.

Jeeny:
(quietly)
You know what I love about his words? He doesn’t speak about ambition—just service. That’s rare.

Jack:
(nodding)
Yeah. He doesn’t say “if you want to lead them.” He says “if you want to help them.” Big difference.

Jeeny:
Leadership without empathy is just management.

Jack:
(sips his tea, then sets the cup down carefully)
And empathy without structure is chaos. You need both—the healer’s heart and the strategist’s mind.

Jeeny:
(thoughtfully)
But you think they can coexist? Politics corrupts the healer faster than healing humanizes the politician.

Jack:
Maybe. But some still try. And that’s what matters.

Host:
The door opened briefly, letting in a gust of cold air and the smell of rain. A nurse from the nearby hospital came in, her scrubs damp, her eyes tired but bright. She smiled at the owner, ordered tea, and disappeared into a corner booth—a quiet reminder that compassion never really clocks out.

Jeeny:
You ever think about doing what Mahathir did? Going from medicine to politics?

Jack:
(laughs softly)
No. I don’t have the patience for speeches. Or lies.

Jeeny:
(smiling)
That’s why you’d be good at it.

Jack:
(shakes his head)
You don’t win elections by telling people they’re sick.

Jeeny:
(leaning forward)
But maybe you could cure something deeper. The disease of indifference. The kind that spreads when people stop believing anyone cares.

Jack:
(quietly, almost whispering)
Yeah. That’s the worst kind of epidemic—hopelessness. And it’s contagious, too.

Host:
The rain outside softened, becoming a fine mist that caught the light like silver threads. Jack’s gaze drifted back to the window, where his reflection stared back—a doctor in a world of wounds too large for one pair of hands.

Jeeny:
You know what his quote reminds me of? The Hippocratic Oath. “First, do no harm.” But in politics, that line’s almost impossible to follow.

Jack:
(smirking faintly)
In politics, everyone thinks harm is just collateral healing.

Jeeny:
(frowning)
You make it sound hopeless.

Jack:
Not hopeless. Just… human. Every ideal begins pure. Then it meets compromise.

Jeeny:
(after a pause)
But you still believe in trying, don’t you?

Jack:
(nods slowly)
Yeah. Because giving up would make me worse than cynical—it’d make me useless.

Host:
The steam from the teacups thinned, fading into the air like fading hope. But something quieter settled between them—resolve, perhaps. A kind of shared faith that trying, even imperfectly, was still sacred.

Jeeny:
You know, Mahathir’s words sound simple. But there’s something powerful in the order he puts them in. “Understand, feel, help.” He doesn’t start with fixing. He starts with listening.

Jack:
(eyes softening)
Yeah. You can’t heal what you haven’t heard.

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
Maybe that’s what’s missing in our leaders now—listening.

Jack:
Maybe that’s what’s missing in all of us.

Host:
The clock struck midnight, its chime echoing softly through the small room. The nurse at the corner booth had fallen asleep over her tea. The world outside was quiet now—rain stopped, air still.

Jeeny:
(standing, wrapping her scarf)
You know what I think? Healing doesn’t change when you move from hospitals to halls of power. It just gets louder, messier, and a whole lot lonelier.

Jack:
(nodding slowly)
And maybe that’s why the best doctors don’t stop healing—they just change their instruments.

Host:
He looked down at the quote again, the ink glistening faintly in the lamplight—one man’s belief that compassion, when scaled, could shape a nation.

Jack:
(quietly, almost to himself)
Medicine saves lives. Politics shapes the conditions that let them live. Maybe both are just different languages for mercy.

Jeeny:
(smiles gently)
Mercy as policy. What a beautiful thought.

Host:
She turned toward the door, and the faint bell chimed as she stepped into the cool night. Jack remained, his hand resting on the folded clipping, the words echoing like a pulse he could still feel in his chest.

Outside, the streetlights glowed like beacons, their reflections trembling on the wet pavement—fragile, human, enduring.

And in that trembling light, Mahathir’s words seemed to linger:

That to heal is to lead,
to understand is to govern,
and that the truest kind of power
isn’t in control—
but in compassion that never retires.