Not Philo, English Lit. Close enough.
Maybe we could look at it from another perspective. Perhaps we who are aware of these dynamics can use the "euphemistic ideal" to our own advantage. Think about this possibility:
While we know (the cynicism preached by the attendings on SDN prove this) that the reality of medicine will always fall short of its romantic depiction (one we either truly believe or just fake believe for the adcoms), perhaps it's not a bad idea to strive after it, day after day.
Like an asymptote that climbs toward infinity but never quite reaches its asymptotic value, maybe we should, as pre-meds, med students, residents, attendings, chiefs of medicine, strive everyday, at every conscious moment, to climb higher on that steep asymptotic slope, to try to close that gap between reality and perfection.
To my thinking, this can be accomplished two ways: manipulation of one's own cognition, and manipulation of the external world.
If we manipulate the contents of our thoughts (mind your thoughts Anakin, for they betray you!) so as to in a way paint a selective portrait of medicine as something that befits the ideal. In other words, focus your thoughts exclusively on the parts that make the job the great and noble calling that it's often built up to be.
If we manipulate the external world, then we're talking about smoothing things out to make our time spent with medicine as "ideal" and "romantic" as possible. Perhaps that means hiring new people, reconstructing the clinic, changing relationships with colleagues and coworkers, etc.
To the extent that we utilize the first technique, we are essentially playing Don Quixote. Trading sensibility and awareness for happiness. This ideal may not appeal to some at first, especially for truth junkies like me. But the bottom line is, if the whole box of chocolates that is medicine sucks on the aggregate, there's nothing wrong with learning how to pick out the good ones.
The second option appeals to me more, but is not always possible. So it may be a good policy to do the latter as much as possible, and then further strive for the ideal via the former. Of course, undoubtedly, both are very difficult to accomplish on a day to day basis. Lord knows it's difficult to self-select your thoughts, but from experience I can tell you that it gets easier the more you practice.
But the point is, maybe we should change the way we approach this profession. If we are aware of the dissonance between the ideal and reality, maybe our job is not to lament it, but rather, to proactively fix it. The thing about that is, your job is never done. Your hardships never cease. You will always be making that steep climb. At the same time however, doing so may not be so difficult. I can tell from my own experience, and perhaps some of you can corroborate, that when I have a goal, when I'm trying to achieve an ideal state of being in one way or another, the work doesn't feel like work, no matter how "hard" it looks like from the outside. In fact, those times have been the happiest I've ever been in my life.
So perhaps our job is not to be passive in our acceptance of the reality of things, but to always strive to alter it, to mold it towards the ideal we cast on the outset of our journey, and do it until we're old and we retire. That way, not only are we being the best doctors we can be, but we are perpetually happy in the course of it. I can't conceive of a life more worth living than that.
