The Ones Who Shall Be Helped
A salesman came into the doctor's office one day. He was trying to pitch his company's product to the electrophysiologist I was shadowing at the time. While he was waiting for him to come out, he asked me why I wanted to become a doctor and waited for my answer. When I couldn't quite put my reasoning together into convincing words he simply smiled. "A lot of people are going to ask you that question," he told me, and suggested that I should always be prepared to answer it. "If you ask any doctor, they'll tell you why they wanted to go into this profession."
So when Dr. Nguyen stepped out of his patient's room, I asked him why he wanted to become a doctor. I don't remember what he said, but I do remember him telling me without even thinking about it. He knew exactly why he wanted to be a doctor and he was well versed in telling people this reason. For the rest of that day, I constantly thought about the salesman's words. I was confident in my reasons to become a doctor, but it took some time to properly put it into words. I knew it couldn't be "to help people" even if that thought was a main motivator. It needed to be better explained. At last, I settled on "I not only want to help treat my patients, but I also want to educate them. Being a doctor means being a healer, a teacher and also a forever student learning new things everyday." I couldn’t think of many other jobs with that kind of opportunity.
I now find that thought a little naïve. The thought of entering med school to learn how to help people resulted in me associating the word "help" with the word "cure." When you walk into something big like that with a set focus of what you already want to learn, it's hard to look at the other things in front of you. I know that if I walked into med school with the thought of wanting to cure people, I'd end up tuning out the people who don't fall into that category. Maybe I'd even treat them as an anomaly, or categorize them as the ones who "can't be helped," and treat them that way. I don't think I'd look at them as a person to be helped, but rather a person to be pitied.
Because of this fellowship, I've decided to change that mindset. I still want part of my role as a doctor to be education because I think it's absolutely crucial and only fair that a person understands his/her health. But, I want to change my definition of help. It won't only mean to cure, (though I hope it does often) it'll also mean to comfort. To offer those in need of support and to give them confidence to face what's ahead. I want to learn how to do that too.