I love medicine, and I love being a doctor, most of the time.Ā But there is much that I do not like about medicine. After hearing that another one of our wonderful peers has lost their lives to suicide, I feel sad.
I resent what medicine does to many of us.
I resent how many of my kind, smart, wonderful friends are struggling to maintain their sanity and their sense of self. I resent that I canāt make it better for them. I resent how many of my peers become trapped in a cycle of self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness in a system set up to make them fail. I resent that our very humanity is sometimes treated like it isĀ unacceptable. I resent that we work on a knife edge; always close to something which could end a career or a life.
I resent that the system (any system, every system) is set up not to look afterĀ patients, nor us. But to look after itself. I resent that politicians use our careers and lives as a football to advance their own careers. I resent that they have no idea what itās like to work an understaffed on-call but think they can change laws and contracts governing how we work. I resent how the media paints us as martyrs one minute and greedy incompetent quacks the next. I resent how much this wears all of us down, and the way itās eroding our cameraderie and goodwill.
I resent that I canāt make the system better for them. For all of us. That Iām just one person. I resent that it could swallow up me or the friends I love at any second and spit us out, leaving us spent and broken. I resent that many donāt care, or try to silence us because āsomeone else has it worse, somewhereā. Of course they do. But we all deserve better.
I resent the rising body count. The many colleagues lost to suicide. The many who lose years of their lives to sickness and despair. I resent the stigma which forces our friends who are struggling to stay alone, and to feel like they are the problem. I resent that the support is sometimes not good enough or not there at all. I resent that itās harder for us to seek help or be open about our struggles specifically because we are doctors. I resent so much that illness is seen by many as a personal failing. I resent that there is a quiet expectation for doctors to struggle on quietly. I resent that there are so many struggling, and yet many of us feel so alone.
I resent how so many of us feel forced to leave to survive. I resent that some of us can dedicate decades of study and love to our lives but become so worn down that giving up is the best choice. I resent how hard that is, because weāve given so much of our lives to medicine and constructed our very identities around it. I resent how many people suffer, because admitting the one thing you most want to do is destroying you, is in itself heartbreaking. I resent how hard it is for people to claw back a life and identity for themselves after medicind has laid waste to their support networks and interests and sense of self. I resent the outsiders who tell us to ādo something else if you donāt like itā, those who have no idea what such a choice means to us.You can never know enough.
You can never do enough. And youāre always at risk of being pressured into making a mistake for which you will be vilified as an individual, with little consideration for the curcumstanced which forced your hand. I resent that Iām one of the lucky ones. Ā Iām doing OK. My seniors have been mostly supportive, my patients mostly kind. My crises have been small. My wobbles well supervised when it mattered. I resent that so many smart, brave people have not been so lucky. I resent that this should even be down to luck. I resent that if my placements had been different, Iād probably be leaving clinical medicine like some of my friends. I resent that despite my luck and all the support, it is still do hard and still takes so much from me, leaving me different than before. I resent my survivorās guilt. I resent that we are all potentially one bad placement or one personal crisis away from a nervous breakdown.
I resent the balancing act. And I resent the well-meaning but ineffectual advice on resilience, which focuses on teaching us how to cope with a terrible situation, and does nothing to change the reality of the situation iteself.. I resent that things are going to get worse, because everything the government do is just eroding conditions further and heaping fuel onto the fire.
Iām going to carry on, and put on my badge, and smile, as usual. And Iām going to take extra care to be kind to my colleagues and make sure my friends are OK. And Iāll get by, hopefully for a long time. But I wonāt forget the casualties among us, or those struggling with the system, and I wonāt forget our stress and our anger.
