Did you miss me?

Wow. Longest hiatus ever. Have no fear, I'm back, and I have a lot to talk about (at least I think I do). Unfortunately, my first post back will not be one of my more amusing ones, but I will work hard to entertain you in the future. So sit back, relax, and hopefully, enjoy.


The unexplained. Never liked it much; in fact, I hated X-Files. At any rate, leaving the unexplained as such makes me slightly nervous. That's why I revel in theorizing about the unexplained. Until now, my greatest theories (in my opinion, of course) attempt to explain that of contagious yawning and the urge to urinate when one hears running water. However, the one that I could never grasp was the one that I would be intimately related to for the rest of my life. Why is it that doctors become so jaded and can so easily seem to lose their ability to be human? Why is it that "we" (only in quotes because I'm not technically a doctor yet) can cut people open, practically bathe in their blood, neglect to save their lives, and not let that affect us? I think I may finally have the answer.


For the last 3+ years, I've been assertively defending myself as a human being. When a current doctor would tell me, a future doctor, that I would not be able to be happy-go-lucky and friendly with all of my patients forever, I immediately disagreed. "I'm just not like that," I would say. "I'll always be able to care about people and there will never be a night when I go home and I don't think about my patients." I realize that this is the fast track to burnout, but I couldn't and cannot accept the fact that at some point in their careers, doctors cease to view their patients as people and start to see them as whatever they substitute (money, machines, irritants, etc.). I've seen it happen. It usually doesn't occur until the doctor has been in practice for quite some time, typically shorter for a surgeon which doesn't bode well for me, and it's nasty.

Of course, there are the numerous patients who, on top of drinking, smoking, and shooting themselves up with drugs, are just plain evil. It's much more difficult to treat these people for their ailments, although we still have to do it. When you think about it, the medical industry is the only "business" in which you have to cater to everyone. Go to McDonalds, order a Big Mac, and then tell them that you're sorry but you can't afford to pay for it. See what happens. My guess is that they'll laugh at you first, and then send you away empty-handed. However, go to an emergency room with a gun-shot wound, bleed all over the floor, and tell them you don't have insurance or money to pay for their services. No problem. We have to save your life anyway. Does it matter that the reason you don't have insurance is because you're an illegal immigrant? Nope. Do we care that the reason you don't have money is because you wasted it all away to buy crack? Never. We can't kick you out of the hospital. In fact, at some hospitals all you have to do to be admitted is simply to tell the staff that you're homeless. They're required to keep you in the hospital until they can find a suitable place for you to live. Fair? Hardly.

I'm sure you can sense that my tone is becoming more and more irritated and harsh. Why? Let's look at it this way. Doctors choose to become doctors for whatever reason. You can think that we do it for the money. You can think that we want to have a prestigious career. That may be true for some doctors out there. But for the vast majority of us, we choose this career path because it makes us feel good. We like to help people. We are compassionate and don't hesitate to show it. We hug family members of the sick and dying because it makes us both feel better. We save your life because when you finally wake up from your coma, it makes us happy to see the joy on the faces of your loved ones. I'm not in this for the money. I'm in this because I am a giving person.

Why do we lose this compassion? Day after day, year after year, we pour our time and energy into healing the sick and dying. We give all we can until there is nothing left for us to give, in which case we find another doctor to help you who just may have a little extra to offer. Our life is both emotionally and physically draining, but we chose this life and it's worth it. We work hard to take care of you, but who takes care of us? Who helps us feel better when we've had a rough day? Certainly not our colleagues. They have nothing left to give, remember? So we turn to you, our friends, family, significant others, to brighten us up and bring us back to reality. To us, it's only natural to think that another human being can show empathy in our time of need.

But apparently, all too often this can be too much to ask. Case in point. A friend of mine is going through a rough time. (You know who you are and I apologize if this offends you. I'm not mad, just illustrating my point.) This friend was out at the bars with a friend of his a few weeks ago. After they were done having a few drinks, the friend drops my friend off at home and proceeds to get into a nasty car accident. He ends up in the ICU with multiple broken ribs, punctured and bruised lungs, on a ventilator. Not only because I'm going to be a doctor, but also because I'm a human being and I care about my friend, I spend the next several days checking on him to make sure that he's handling everything okay and that his friend is hanging in there. I share my medical knowledge to try to reassure my friend that everything will turn out alright in the end. Every single day, I make sure that his friend is improving in the ICU, and every single day I pray that my friend doesn't somehow feel responsible.

Then I have a rough day myself. I find out that my father lost his job and I fail two exams. I know that these exams are truly insignificant when it comes to my overall grades, but I begin to doubt my abilities to do well on a future exam that is much more important (and is coming up on 8/22). It's hard to explain how essential it is that I do well on this future exam, so just take my word that in order to become a surgeon and get into a good residency program, I need to do well, and now I am unsure that I can do as well as I need to. Needless to say, I need some reassurance. Even if it's a lie, I just need someone to tell me that I am smart and will do fine, not to worry. When I am talking to my friend that night, as usual I ask him how his friend is doing and continue with the normal banter that has become a delightful commonplace in our conversations. Then I reveal that I've had a rough day. I've failed two exams and I'm rightfully worried about this exam coming up next week. Silence. No reassurance. No guidance. What did I do wrong?

I realize that it is not my place to expect this friend to make me feel better. It is not his job to do so, nor should I be allowed to be upset with him for neglecting to lift my spirits. However, a word or two would've been nice.

So why do doctors become jaded and seemingly lose their ability to be human? When you are compassionate and empathize with patients and their families for a living, you start to expect the same in return. Maybe not from the patient. Maybe not from the patient's family. But from someone. Anyone. We spend years caring and giving until we just can't do it anymore. We hit the wall and things don't affect us anymore. We don't feel badly that we had to amputate a 21-year old's leg and he'll never walk normally again. It doesn't faze us to remove your colon so that you will spend the rest of your life defecating into a bag dangling out of your stomach. And when we can't save the life of a 17-year old girl who died so suddenly, we don't cry when we have to tell her family that we did everything we could.

I don't blame it on our friends and family. I blame it on the career itself. I'm not saying that it's right. I'm not saying that we should allow ourselves to become this way. But the mere fact of it is, why should we bother to care about others if others don't care about us?