Why I like being a doctor

I get to get "mars bars" for a man from Mexico who has a newly discovered brain metastases from his lung cancer. After he came back after he left to make sure his wife in Mexico was okay.

I get to learn how to say "good morning" in Russian: Dovre utro (sp?) from patients whose response to my saying, "I'll see you later," is "good, something to look forward to!"

I get to teach medical students like K. and hear how much she learned from her boyfriend. "She said you were the best intern. She loved working with you. She said I'd be really lucky if I got to work with you, too." I get to be a role model and act the way I believe to be right.

I get to make sure a dying man with esophageal cancer gets his cup of morning coffee even though he can't swallow more than a couple drops. He spend the days worrying about his chemotherapy and writing letters and poems to his family. He doesn't have long to live and he's worried that he will be in pain. "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of being in pain and of being a burden." What he wants is about 15 peanut butter sandwiches. He hasn't had anything to eat in two months. Three meals a day of liquid food into a hole in his stomach. When he asked me for the coffee, he reached for my coat sleeve, "There is something you can do for me, Doc." "Sure." "Can I get a cup of coffee. With lots of cream and sugar. Could you grant a dying man his last wish?" Of course I can. Of course I did.

My rash patient thanks me for being there "through everything."

Even my grumpy one-legged ascites end stage heart failure patient has his good moments...though most of the time I find him ruminating, sitting on his bedside commode asleep, or eating eggs slathered in ketchup.

Basically, I get to make a difference in people's lives...and in their deaths...and in their passing.

It's hard sometimes. My patient who has been in a persistant vegetative state for two years is a sad story. He died and the team brought him back with heroic measures (a "successful" code blue) but his brain didn't have oxygen for too long and he's never woken up since. The rumor is that his family is keeping him alive in order to get his monthly check from the government. My first reaction was that this was cold, but who am I to judge? Perhaps it's their only mode of income. Perhaps this is what he would have wanted, since it is the only thing his swollen contracted body can do for them? I don't know. All I can do is my best...with whatever I do know.

Maybe enjoying being a doctor is selfish in a way...because it makes me feel useful and happy to be able to touch lives like that. I've put myself in a profession and a position where I become a part of the most intimate pivotal details of people's lives. But hopefully, somewhere along the way, while I'm feeling good about being useful and appreciated, my patients are feeling good, too. I hope so.