Much Ado About Nothing: Why be a doctor?

Every so often, it’s good to ask yourself if your life is meandering down the right path or veering off towards some sort of event horizon that bears no resemblance to anything you had in mind. In my case, it tends to occur around 4 in the morning when I’m mentally grimacing about the fact that I have to be on-call in the middle of the night. Which is usually followed by another part of me replying in a matter-of-fact manner that hey, you’re a night person and you actually enjoy staying up.

The main downside of working during the night is the crap you have to deal with that could’ve been sorted out during the day. The more I practise medicine, the more I realise that good medical practise is not about being smart but revolves around a tiny bit of ingenuity and a lot of common sense and organisation. Which is sadly lacking at times.

Imaan mentioned to me the other day that most of her colleagues would choose another career if they were given the opportunity to start over, a point of view that is not uncommon amongst the medical fraternity and even among my closest friends. I have been asked the same question numerous times and although I do have internal debates each and every time, I end up answering in the affirmative.

Of course there are many good and bad bits to medicine :

Bad bits :
- You’re bound to break down at least once.
- You’re bound to contribute to the death of someone at least once.
- You’ll probably come across a case where you did your best and still end up getting sued.
- Being a junior doctor is a rather thankless job at times. Nah, most of the times.
- Not many other jobs cause as much stress at 3 in the morning.
- It takes an awfully long time, along many convoluted paths, to get where you want to be. And the politics of things do not help much.
- The occasional sleepless night and cold sweats when you wonder if that drug you prescribed or forgot to prescribe might end up killing the patient.
- Organisational nightmares.

And good bits :
- Scrubs are really comfy. Which is why I’ll wholeheartedly support the move (that my hosp is considering at the moment) to do away with shirts/ties/slacks/blouses/skirts and get everyone to wear scrubs to work.
- You make a palpable difference. If you do your job right and don’t end up making someone’s life a living hell that is.
- Improves aspects of your personality e.g. confidence, communication skills, patience. Although my threshold is arguably lower since I’ve started work.
- You inspire and get inspired.
- The wonder and excitement and the immense satisfaction of solving a complex problem.

In my case, despite my incessant bitching and moaning, I think I do enjoy my job as whole, for the various reasons listed above. After all, no job is perfect and what you need to do is to make sure that you do something that you can see yourself doing 30 years down the line. I was never one of those kids who grew up proclaiming that it was 'medicine or bust'. I went into medical school thinking that hey, this is interesting and I could do this and nothing else was both interesting and provided a stable financial foundation at the time. It was only in my clinical years that I actually fell in love with it.

I don’t really have a burning desire to mint money, and am quite happy to remain at the ‘comfortable’ level. Which is another one of the main reasons I enjoy working with the NHS (which, despite its numerous faults, is an amazing organisation that the British public do not give enough credit to). For the brief moments when I am at work, I am able to just focus on trying to improve things and escape and forget that the world outside consists of capitalistic individuals who are hell-bent on screwing others and their planet over.

I have no doubt that I will remain a cynic, and probably get more so over the years but hopefully the interest in medicine will not dissipate. Will I recommend it to othes? Yes, with the caveat that they are fully aware of what to expect. Came across this flow chart in the BMJ, which I think is a rather accurate and amusing portrayal of the way to choose your career if you’re keen on hospital medicine :