Ramblings, on becoming a doctor

“When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. Tis the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes”

From Bertoit Brecht's A Worker's Speech to a Doctor

I'm visiting home this weekend and am fascinated watching my sister interact with her newborn child. He is such a helpless little thing. As my sister said, anyone can do anything to him, and all he can do is cry. It's an obvious point, but I guess that degree of fragility is something we don't often encounter in daily life.

It got me thinking about the above excerpt from Brecht's poem. One of the reasons I love medicine as a profession is that people come to you with their problems, and you get to fix them. Anyone reading this will probably immediately think, "Oh yeah? Is that how it works? Because that isn't how it's been working!" Nevertheless, it is that idea(l) that attracts me to the field.

It's a scary thought, not to be taken lightly. As a physician, you are asking someone to come to you in their most vulnerable state, helpless as a baby (let's leave litigiousness aside for the moment). You have powerful drugs at your disposal, compounds that can wreak havoc on the body, or fix it instantly, or some compromise thereof.

Small things make a huge difference. Maybe your marriage is in trouble, or your teenager is a nightmare. Maybe you're depressed. Maybe your finances are suffering. Maybe you don't want to talk about it. Maybe you do. Maybe you shouldn't, but maybe you should.

How will I know if I don't ask?

Sometimes I frankly cannot believe that they let me into medical school. That assuming all goes according to plan, I will be a doctor and I will have this huge responsibility of someone's life in my hands. That I will have a pad on which I write treatments that could do a lot of damage to another human being. Or if I become a surgeon, that I will be fiddling around inside a fellow person.

But wasn't that the dream? Isn't this what I've been striving for, that very responsibility? Didn't I write in my medical school applications that there was nothing I wanted more than to be in this position?

And it's true, it is still true. There's nothing I want more. I don't know how this sounds, but I want to be a resource, a beacon for people. I want to be a giver like a tree that bears fruit. You pluck the fruit and it grows more, no problem, no questions asked. It bears so much fruit, in fact, that sometimes the tree bends over with the weight of its bounty. I want to be like that, if God wills it.

I pray I never forget what Brecht is referring to. The exquisite vulnerability of that moment with a patient. Eventually, it will be up to me: I can treat their symptoms (or what I perceive to be their symptoms), or I can treat them whole.

I'm sure I have no idea what I'm talking about right now, but I'm also sure that what I'm saying is true.