Do you still want to be a doctor
I wrote the following piece during my fourth year of medical school. All throughout undergrad people constantly ask, “why do you want to be a doctor?”. Then you get into medical and it’s a stunning experience; you realize you’ve committed decades of your life to an overwhelming profession and no one really stops to ask “Do you still want to be a doctor?”
The outside of the clinic matched the neighborhood it stood in, a run-down, stucco exterior with no bells and whistles weathered from the intense Texas sun and wind. This building served a purpose and did not require any additional advertising; people flocked in out of necessity. I pushed the tinted glass door open and walked into the small waiting area to meet the woman at the front desk. She smiled and directed me to a chair where I anxiously awaited meeting my new preceptor. Doctor Villarreal burst in after seeing her last patient, fiery red hair permed into tight curls amass her head. Her fierce personality served her well here at the border, where a dire need for change and advocacy is hardly ever met without resistance. Not a woman to waste time, she immediately asked me “Do you still want to be a doctor?”
I subtly reeled back in my seat. No one had ever asked me that. The first two years of medical school, particularly being in the inaugural class, consisted of me and my classmates essentially creating a new medical school while trying to figure out how to study for boards and pass classes with no upperclassmen to turn to for aid. The third year of medical school entailed long days and short months of scrambling between clinics, in-patient floors, and operating rooms while finding a calling and studying for SHELF exams. The expectations always loomed overhead: get through, finish this course, finish this exam, find research opportunities, apply to residency, start thinking about fellowships, pick out a retirement community. Never had I considered the question Do I still want to be a doctor? I blinked, a confused cow that had just been tipped, and swiftly my thoughts gathered, and I pieced them together, shocked at the discoveries unraveling from my deliberations.
Initially, my brain jumped to the first logical conclusion: simply stated, medicine is hard. The profession demands hard workers, people loyal to patients and devoted to incessantly obtaining knowledge. Medical students and physicians experience burnout at alarmingly high rates, and increasing distrust for the medical profession pierces through modern society, and healthcare economics appear an insolvable, nebulous enigma. But, I still refuse to choose a different career path, and if I had to go back I would not change a thing. There are mountains to move and battles to conquer and puzzles to solve, but how lucky am I to participate in a community of physicians tasked with addressing big picture issues, finding new ways to better serve populations, and fighting for the fate of healthcare. After years of learning and training and experiencing patient care, who better to take on the looming issues.
Secondly, my thoughts danced in full color, synapse to synapse spinning down all the memories of the patients and families I attended. Out of the entirety of my third year, pediatric patients always stood at the forefront of my mind. I thought about the refugee children admitted into the inpatient psychiatric ward, the young 16-year-old who presented with untreated stage IV osteosarcoma of the knee, the 2-year-old with meningococcemia, the mother of the little girl admitted in diabetic ketoacidosis, and a tiny baby born with his intestines outside of his body. The hours spent on the floors getting updated results, repeating physical exams, and tweaking treatment regimens; it all flashed by. Each of these people affected me. Each story caused new realizations, new sorrows, and new joys. I came to medicine because of the human experience, because the best lives are lived in service to others, and because looking on the canvas of others splatters vibrant hues across my own. How could I experience the depth of fear from the refugees, the level of pain from the teenage boy, the overflowing sorrow from a mother, and turn away? Medicine is complex, emotional, and consuming, but a privilege, nonetheless. No other occupation allows enacting changes in people’s personal lives, creating changes in the scientific practice of medicine through research, and making changes on large population scales.
I contemplated my goals of practicing pediatrics, thought about how my practice in the art and science of medicine only just began and responded “I can’t imagine doing anything else”.
