Since my final exams ended last Friday, I have been taking a break before I hit the books hard again. Monday I started my next chapter- Microbiology a.k.a. “Micro” (there is always an acronym and abbreviation for everything in medicine).
My schedule is 100% Micro now, and my days start an hour earlier. So, this week I got up every morning at 6:15am in winter’s coming darkness, and attended 22 hours of lectures covering bacterial species, infections, and antibiotics.
Despite all this new material, the most intriguing information this week came in a Netflix envelope. It was a Nova video that Ben and I received a while ago entitled “Doctors’ Diaries.” This 2-part series followed seven Harvard medical students for 17 years as they completed their training and pursued their careers in medicine. My parents recommended the video to me a year ago, and I finally watched it.
I was surprised to find the video rather depressing. Sure, there were some wonderful moments as I watched these students from the 80′s describe their similar experiences in medical school. They all went on to love their careers as doctors. Yet, overall their personal lives were kind of messy. Only 2 doctors were married at the end, and both of those people had spouses who took a huge role helping with their kids and home.
I’d like to think that these seven doctors were not average. They were Harvard students who may have been chosen for the documentary because of their high achievement or dramatic personalities. However, I know that in fact they DO represent the people in my profession more so than I want to accept. I am fortunate to know inspiring doctors who have great family lives, but I realize that this feat is not easy.
Ben and I had a lot of discussion surrounding the movie. Apparently he had not grasped how little time I will have between getting my residency match and starting a program, or how inflexible my call schedule might be. One spouse in the movie talked about spending many nights alone because her doctor husband was always in the hospital. Sometimes I myself sigh when I think of the holidays, travels, and moments that I could miss because of what I have chosen to do.
Simply stated: medicine is service job. I knew this from the beginning. In our country doctors are generally admired, well-paid, and have special privileges such as writing prescriptions and performing intimate procedures with the body.
People like me who go into medicine generally enjoy the challenge of this huge responsibility, service, and specialized knowledge. What is different about this service is that it requires one to be a complete, professional servant.
As one doctor stated in the series, it is an extreme honor to get close to patients and help them. However, when you love your patients, it becomes especially difficult during moments of great importance to decide whether to be with them, or be with your own family.
After watching “Doctors’ Diaries” I know I will have to make difficult decisions and many mistakes before I learn how to handle all this. I hope my marriage will survive the stress of my errors, and that my family and patients will forgive me. I still want to be a good doctor, wife, mother, friend, daughter- is that too much to desire?
Reading your blog has been fantastic.
Do you ever feel at a disadvantage for having waited 4 years (right ?) before going to medical school ? Is being older than your peers ever a problem ? I am thinking of a career switch from engineering to medical school within the next 2 years, and worried at the idea of uprooting myself and starting later in a field that already requires so many years, and putting my husband through all of this psychological and monetary strain.
I feel both at a disadvantage and an advantage. Being older makes it hard to memorize information quickly, especially when it doesn’t seem important in the grand scheme. It makes it physically harder to have a difficult schedule. However, the advantage of being older is having a solid relationship/ support network already in place, knowing how to take care of yourself and being able to put things in perspective. And ultimately if you feel being a doctor is your vocation, I think you will get through the +/- 7 years of training, and your maturity might help you to do it more gracefully. But every medical student, resident and their partners have moments of stress, doubting whether it was a good idea. Ultimately the patients I see and problems I face daily make me feel like it was a good idea.