There's a story behind everything in medicine.
In the first few weeks of school, I was walking to the children's hospital connected to my school with a friend as we adventured to the cafeteria in search of additional doses of caffeine to fuel our long biochemistry study session. As we walked, I complained about how challenging this test was going to be, how hard studying was, how challenging this adjustment has been, etc, etc, etc. Meanwhile, we got onto the elevator and joined what seemed like a child and his mother and grandmother.
"Where to?" she asked.
"Lower level, please, thanks," I said.
She nodded and clicked the LL button. She had her hands tenderly around the little boy's shoulders. I resumed speaking to my friend about how worth it I hope it'll be later. The family remained quiet and the elevator stopped, opening its doors to the level that was their stop. As they were leaving, I looked up at the mother, her eyes appeared red and I realized that the whole time during the ride, she was looking at the ground with her hands on her son's shoulders. As they walked out of the elevator, I noticed he was wearing a pediatric hospital gown with space ships on it.
He had to be a patient here.
His mother's eyes were red, swollen.
Her hands were on his shoulders, ever so tenderly. Was she comforting him or was she holding onto him for comfort? This little life full of potential masked in a cover with space ships, reminding him of the infinite space of the galaxy, how far he has to dream, and how even here in this scary place with lots of machines and needles he could dream of being an astronaut or a scientist.
The doors closed behind them, and I realized I was complaining about my life in front of them. Maybe they just heard some bad news and needed a break. Or maybe they were going back to his room at the hospital rather than at home. Maybe they were tired, just really tired. Not my version of tired, but a worse kind: a painful, emotional kind of exhaustion that cannot be repaired because life's circumstances don't provide an escape from something like that.
And I thought I was exhausted.
I won't forget that moment. Each time I begin to complain about how hard medical school is I think back to how I dream of working in a children's hospital like the one I get to be right next to while in school. I hope to be able to change the lives of those small humans with grand potentials. But I'll also see parents suffer more than I'll ever understand suffering. And in their faces, my problems will not be theirs. My problems will also NOT be greater than theirs.
Now think about this: behind every enzyme deficiency, growing tumor, medical procedure, and incredibly beautiful organ we hold in our hands, there is the story of the person this was discovered in or performed on.
It is so easy to forget that.
Let me repeat that: yes, I want to be a care provider for PEOPLE, but it is so easy to forget the PEOPLE.
And that is part of the reason why I am choosing to blog my way through medicine: to put into words what my mind might forget.
These moments where I am suddenly reminded of the involvement of someone's life behind what I am studying, they always strike me in the same way. I have to stop for a moment to realize that I have forgotten that yet again, then I try to think of how their life might have been affected by said disease, before I finally feel the motivation to resume studying because maybe just maybe I could be on the other side of another person's story when we get to the "happy ending" part.
I do this for the happy moments. But in order to do it for that reason, I have to remember that there are sometimes sad/hard/awful/gut-wrenching moments.
And that brings me to the biggest inspiration that has moved me forward in the last 8 weeks multiple multiple times. Two years ago, during my pediatric mission trip in Palestine, I held a 12 year old boy's hand until he fell asleep under anesthesia, and then learned to suture for the first time on the same hand.
In a hospital that is considered as one of the hospitals with the least resources in the region, medical teams from all over the world went there to restore life to many different children. His parents were hopeful and excited that after the surgery, he would be able to open a door on his own. He would be able to hold a pencil without a problem. He would be able to rotate his hand like the rest of the boys his age when they played.
I was there when he was terrified, but he was also finally receiving treatment that would be given to kids in the U.S. with a similar condition while they were toddlers so they could gain nearly full functionality in their hands. His wouldn't be perfect, but he would be able to do significantly more than he could before.
He was terrified. His hand trembled in my hand. And then my hand trembled as it hovered over his hand a few hours later while suturing. He was regaining his potential while I was learning my own. And thinking of the actions he'd be able to do after the procedure was over gave him a story. It made everything more important.
I could complain because, well, that's human nature, but if you put a person behind each challenge you're facing, suddenly their pain and struggles will be much worse than yours. And that gives me the power to say, "I can do this. I can power through this for them."
It is easy to forget, but let us grow better at remembering.
In the first few weeks of school, I was walking to the children's hospital connected to my school with a friend as we adventured to the cafeteria in search of additional doses of caffeine to fuel our long biochemistry study session. As we walked, I complained about how challenging this test was going to be, how hard studying was, how challenging this adjustment has been, etc, etc, etc. Meanwhile, we got onto the elevator and joined what seemed like a child and his mother and grandmother.
"Where to?" she asked.
"Lower level, please, thanks," I said.
She nodded and clicked the LL button. She had her hands tenderly around the little boy's shoulders. I resumed speaking to my friend about how worth it I hope it'll be later. The family remained quiet and the elevator stopped, opening its doors to the level that was their stop. As they were leaving, I looked up at the mother, her eyes appeared red and I realized that the whole time during the ride, she was looking at the ground with her hands on her son's shoulders. As they walked out of the elevator, I noticed he was wearing a pediatric hospital gown with space ships on it.
He had to be a patient here.
His mother's eyes were red, swollen.
Her hands were on his shoulders, ever so tenderly. Was she comforting him or was she holding onto him for comfort? This little life full of potential masked in a cover with space ships, reminding him of the infinite space of the galaxy, how far he has to dream, and how even here in this scary place with lots of machines and needles he could dream of being an astronaut or a scientist.
The doors closed behind them, and I realized I was complaining about my life in front of them. Maybe they just heard some bad news and needed a break. Or maybe they were going back to his room at the hospital rather than at home. Maybe they were tired, just really tired. Not my version of tired, but a worse kind: a painful, emotional kind of exhaustion that cannot be repaired because life's circumstances don't provide an escape from something like that.
And I thought I was exhausted.
I won't forget that moment. Each time I begin to complain about how hard medical school is I think back to how I dream of working in a children's hospital like the one I get to be right next to while in school. I hope to be able to change the lives of those small humans with grand potentials. But I'll also see parents suffer more than I'll ever understand suffering. And in their faces, my problems will not be theirs. My problems will also NOT be greater than theirs.
Now think about this: behind every enzyme deficiency, growing tumor, medical procedure, and incredibly beautiful organ we hold in our hands, there is the story of the person this was discovered in or performed on.
It is so easy to forget that.
Let me repeat that: yes, I want to be a care provider for PEOPLE, but it is so easy to forget the PEOPLE.
And that is part of the reason why I am choosing to blog my way through medicine: to put into words what my mind might forget.
These moments where I am suddenly reminded of the involvement of someone's life behind what I am studying, they always strike me in the same way. I have to stop for a moment to realize that I have forgotten that yet again, then I try to think of how their life might have been affected by said disease, before I finally feel the motivation to resume studying because maybe just maybe I could be on the other side of another person's story when we get to the "happy ending" part.
I do this for the happy moments. But in order to do it for that reason, I have to remember that there are sometimes sad/hard/awful/gut-wrenching moments.
And that brings me to the biggest inspiration that has moved me forward in the last 8 weeks multiple multiple times. Two years ago, during my pediatric mission trip in Palestine, I held a 12 year old boy's hand until he fell asleep under anesthesia, and then learned to suture for the first time on the same hand.
In a hospital that is considered as one of the hospitals with the least resources in the region, medical teams from all over the world went there to restore life to many different children. His parents were hopeful and excited that after the surgery, he would be able to open a door on his own. He would be able to hold a pencil without a problem. He would be able to rotate his hand like the rest of the boys his age when they played.
I was there when he was terrified, but he was also finally receiving treatment that would be given to kids in the U.S. with a similar condition while they were toddlers so they could gain nearly full functionality in their hands. His wouldn't be perfect, but he would be able to do significantly more than he could before.
He was terrified. His hand trembled in my hand. And then my hand trembled as it hovered over his hand a few hours later while suturing. He was regaining his potential while I was learning my own. And thinking of the actions he'd be able to do after the procedure was over gave him a story. It made everything more important.
I could complain because, well, that's human nature, but if you put a person behind each challenge you're facing, suddenly their pain and struggles will be much worse than yours. And that gives me the power to say, "I can do this. I can power through this for them."
It is easy to forget, but let us grow better at remembering.
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