CONFESSIONS OF A DOCTOR

I always wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember.  As a teen, the choice seemed to perfectly meld my affinity for science, academics, and helping others. For ten long years, I lived, breathed, and worked towards my goal to become not just another one, but one fine doctor.

In school, I studied the foundational cornerstones of science and humanities and focused on how health impacts the rest of our lives. In college, I learned about different aspects of each organ system and marvelled at the miracles of the human body.  During post graduation, I strode in the wards during the wee hours of the morning, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I provided care to patients. When I finally achieved my goal to call myself a certified maxillofacial surgeon, I beamed as I walked into my new workplace that had my name posted on the wall outside the department.

Despite my lofty dreams and expectations, practising maxillofacial surgery was nothing like I hoped it would be.  My days were filled with opportunities to meet and grow with patients and families, but my tit-bits of time were sliced into 10-15 minute increments.  As my practice size increased, I was persistently pressured to add extra patients over my lunch hours, before the day started, and into time slots already booked with other patients. The need to move increasingly efficiently sparked anxiety within me. I was halfway through greeting one patient before I was also surreptitiously listening for the opening and closing of the room door to signal that another patient was waiting.

The physical and emotional work of completing a visit every 10-15 minutes, repeatedly refreshing my smile before I burst into the next room began to make me feel like a machine.  As a robot in the factory of medicine, the demands of my job pulled at my greatest skills of empathy and compassion, two of the character traits that made me most suited for primary care.  However hard I tried, it was hard to feel compassionate for a patient when I was already ignoring my raging headache, need to urinate, and fatigue.  Despite my gut instinct to address the “one last thing” that patients often bring up at the end of a visit, the pressure of metrics that detailed my length of visit and wait time for patients pressurized me to ignore their concerns, even if my actions translated into another visit, another day.

When I did have time to sit down, I was crowded into the corner of a small room shared by two other doctors, trying to make phone calls, complete patient records, and converse with staff.  My brain and my inner self were desperate for peace, though I knew it would be only moments before the next patient was ready in the next room to begin again.

By the time I got home each evening, I was a deflated emotional balloon, sucked of energy and ambition and left with little to share. When my own wife rushed to greet me, I offered her a quick hug and then silently wished she would quiet down.  After dinner, I rested with her until it was time to open my laptop again and work through additional papers, e-mails, and other tasks.  My wife personified my laptop as a bed-fellow in our marriage.  I struggled for the emotional energy to make my steadfast lifetime partner feel loved.

I attended various meetings where doctors were referred to as “lazy, whiny, irresponsible, and unmotivated”.  I gazed through the picturesque windows of the large halls as I listened to the mantra that we need to see more patients, more efficiently, and work longer hours as if I were listening to the drumbeat at a funeral march.

Doctors are tasked to learn and practice mindfulness, meditation, and regular exercise. While I try to make exercise a priority, I simply can’t find the time to learn the other soul-saving techniques in my current work environment.  I think it is not only a doctor’s responsibility to take care of ourselves, but the scaffolding of the health care system needs allow for practices that will sustain those of us at its very core.

I sometimes feel worn out by the push to provide efficient and effective care for others while ignoring my own personal needs.  I am saddened by the palpable wounds that I have left in my personal life through lack of energy, lack of engagement, and inability to be there when people need me.  I am discouraged that despite so many years of focus and sacrifice, Google has become a smarter and more esteemed doctor than I.  I am worried that the advent and elevation of pseudo-science has led to opinions of thousand doctors being outweighed by the thoughts of a handful of rebels.

As I am thinking to re-cultivate the human that has been suppressed by the robot that provided medical care, I look forward to regaining the health and happiness that we seek for all.