Chapter Text
As the weeks of his work on Cardassia stretched into months and headed towards years, there were many things Dr Julian Bashir learned about his adopted homeworld. It was nearly human-inhospitably hot. The inhabitants were passionate, private, and often prickly.
The land was almost indescribably beautiful. Even with all the destruction, there was a harsh loveliness that was inescapable.
At least to him. The same could not be said of many of his Federation colleagues, more’s the pity.
They, all too often, were judgemental, quietly (or not so quietly) scornful, determined that they (and the Federation by extension) knew best for everyone and everything and then had the confusing (to Bashir, at least) gall to be surprised at their results, the response given to them.
What a monumental, unfunny joke it all was.
But, as hard as that was to accept, what was harder still was when Bashir was forced to look at the medicine that he and his colleagues were giving (or attempting to give).
How doctor-centered it all was, rather than patient-centered as it should have been.
How little attention was being given to the patient’s overall health and wellness. While yes, preventative care was harder to do in a recovering war-zone, at the same time, as Cardassia began to recover, therre was no corresponding change on the part of the Federation medicine being offered.
And as for the mental health of the patient, well, the less said about that, the better. Not only was everyone suffering from various presentations of things which could be directly traced back to PTSD (unsurprising in a recovering war-zone), but the Federation refused to take even the most cursory look at how culture-centered care might be given.
In mental health or anything else, but the cracks showed even larger when it came to mental health. It turned out that Garak was a fairly typical (in this, at least) member of his species when it came to discussing (or rather, doing everything else but) his mental health.
So it was unsurprising, at least to Bashir, why the standard Federation standards were not working on Cardassia. But again, as infuriatingly typical, his colleagues were confused, complaining about ‘non-compliant’ and ‘hostile’ patients, rather than examining the possibility that the larger part of the problem might lie with the face they saw in the mirror.
Quite impossible, that.
And the largest, most unfunny joke of them all.