Each year, the AMA has an essay contest on a burning question in ethics. There's a handsome prize for the winner: $5,000. I'm not really a fan of the field of ethics; while I recognize its usefulness in medicine, I don't enjoy arguing about heated topics with opinionated people when there's no right answer except the one you feel in your heart. But I have to admit, the prize money was a draw.

The topic was whether or not medical schools should use social networking sites like Facebook as criteria for making admission decisions on applicants. And while I didn't write the essay, I thought it was an interesting question because, at its core, it asks a deeper question about a physician's role in society.

As much as I used to roll my eyes at people who claimed this, I now understand why good medicine is not just another 9-5. We all want to believe we are special, putting ourselves out there for the world to appreciate. It's not a terrible thing; it's the human condition. If we don't believe we are special, what's the point of living?

But a good physician IS special. A good physician spends extra time with anxiously waiting family members to explain how the surgery went. A good physician translates the pathophysiology of disease processes into more digestible elements so his patients can participate in their own care. A good physician listens patiently to her patients' worries, even when they are unfounded. A good physician struggles to suppress judgment and objectively advise a patient whose health problems are clearly attributable to his own poor choices.

A good physician is someone who, after interacting with her, leaves you feeling better. It requires going above and beyond the call of duty. Doing the right thing, all the time, not because someone is looking over your shoulder, but because you are taking the responsibility of someone else's health in your hands.

This kind of person is not acting from 9-5. This kind of person just is.

What does this have to do with Facebook? I don't know the answer to the AMA's ethics question. I know many golden-hearted people who have what would likely be considered character-compromising material on their social networking pages. They are professional when they need to be, and unprofessional when they want to be. What's the problem?

My dilemma is a little different. I'm a nondrinker, so you won't find pictures of me on Facebook in various states of drunken revelry or undress. But as a medical student who, this time next year, will have an MD behind my name (God willing), I find myself wondering how I am going to be a good person and a good physician at the same time. Yes, one necessitates the other. But they also conflict.

My sister, unlike me, is in the family-making phase of her life. She just had a beautiful baby boy, a little brother to her other beautiful 20-month old child. My parents, who came to this country at my age for medical residency, worked harder than I can imagine and made their wealth by God's grace, are growing older. I play an important role in my family's life, and that role is only growing. Not in a duty-bound sort of way, but in a loving, part-of-the-fold way. We are a nuclear family and stick together, helping each other solve problems, be good, and do good for ourselves, each other and when possible, others. When I was growing up, my parents always emphasized my studies. My job in life, as I understood it, was to go to an Ivy League school, attain a graduate degree, and become a working professional making lots of money (not for the sake of greed, but for the sake of respect) and living an honest life.

Well, three out of four ain't bad.

I went to Cal, got my graduate degree (x 2, almost), and am, I pray, living an honest life. I don't care how much money I make but as a physician, it will most likely be a respectable amount. But even though I am still a student, there's one criterion my parents forgot to emphasize when I was growing up: I am a person first, and a student second. Yes, my studies will get me that contributing role in society. But I cannot respect myself unless I am a contributing member of my family.

And that is a tall order. As I develop my personality as a physician, I have taken pride in actively listening to patients, involving myself emotionally enough to go the extra mile for them, but not so much that I incapacitate myself to give good care. I want to be a resource, a giver, a source of hope for my patients, God willing. But what about my family?

A person has only so much to give. A good physician gives a lot to her patients and their families. But what about their own? Are a professional giver's priorities skewed? How is it ok to spend those extra ten minutes at the end of a long day with a patient's family rather than your own?

So it seems that I don't have the answer to my own moral dilemma, either. All I know is that I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be a physician, but also that it is only one role I play in life. I can only pray that my role as a good family member will make my role as a physician more complete. That the two will be synergistic in some way, perhaps in the preservation of some sense of humanity that seems to be buried in weathered professionals. And weathered people.

And that I have the wisdom to leave it entirely up to God.