What is your "Why"?

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wanderingorion

wanderingorion

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As we do from time to time, I have been ruminating on my "Why" for coming to medical school/going in to medicine. I feel that as we worked to get to this point, we wore our "Why" on our sleeves, writing about in essays, talking about it in interviews and with family/friends. But, now that we are here, we seem to keep it close, returning during trying times.

I'm doing a little personal research and hoping to write more about this, and I need your help.

If you have the time, please share your "Why." You don't have to share your name, and it can be as short/long as you like. How has your "Why" changed during your time here, and why? Has your "Why" been enough for you?

Even if you don't share, I hope this post helps you reconnect with the small flame that lights our way, and makes it a little brighter.

Your "Why"
 
puahate said:
Because one day, I'll be Hokage
Click to expand...
Uzumaki.Naruto.full.682639.jpg
 
My liking of science is what initially attracted me to the field when I was in high school. That interest kept increasing in college as I learned more about disease processes and pathophysiology of diseases.
Culminated with the idea of having the knowledge to save someone and as a medical student, I am attracted to the high-stakes fields that require extensive training and excellence.
Perks that sealed the decision are job security, high salary, leading the entire medical team and being in charge ( I don't personally think I could be a nurse or PA and work under a physician)
 
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I started down this path to make sure no poor woman died in childbirth, and no child was born unwanted. I stayed with it because I think I will be able to be a good doctor and continue to care about people. I have been seduced over to another specialty, but I figured that I could still be an activist even if I am not doing women's health.
 
My mom suffered from grandmal seizures ever since she was a teenager. I can’t tell you how many busted heads and dislocated shoulders she endured throughout my childhood.

Saying that, she was a single mom. So, I was in charge of getting her out of harms way, calling the wee-woo truck, and trying to prevent more bloody messes. It taught me to grow up, but it also showed me that I love the hospital (weird, I know).

The “why” happened when surgeons were able to fix her seizures with an implant. I looked up to them because they took our life and flipped it upside down. She went from having ten or more seizures per year, to none. During all of this chaos one of her “life lessons” was this: Do your best to find a positive solution among the crappiness life throws at you.

So, I guess medical school is my positive solution for the crap we endured growing up.

ANYWAYS, enough of the pageant talk. +pity+I hope I keep this same mindset, but I am fearful that I will become jaded and bitter. Here is to hoping that my childhood dream becomes a reality.

Edit: Also, I wanted to be asked “Do you know what this is/why does *insert body part* make this noise?” At family events and hangouts.
 
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Grew up in Haiti, so I've known poverty, terrible healthcare and sanitation which equals all kinds of diseases, lots and lots of natural disasters, and finally surviving the 2010 earthquake was an eye opener. So I chose this field, so no one on my path has to live the same experience I did growing up.
 
Grew up homeless. So many people who are homeless have mental health issues. So I became interested in psych. My mom had cancer and was treated at a public hospital. Strong interest in service to the homeless and underserved community.
 
Sometimes I ask myself "why am I doing this?" But then I respond "well, like, why not man?" I always walk away from these moments of self-reflection reinvigorated and ready to take on the next challenge.
 
It’s a job that is better than most. I try to work as little as possible and enjoy life outside of work. I don’t hate my job but not working is far more enjoyable. I don’t understand people who work over 40 hours a week as a physician. Just work less, make less, and enjoy your life. Life > money.
 
I watched my dad suffer with Hep C basically from the day I was born. He was a doctor, so used the disease to teach me about medicine. We dissected a fetal pig together, and he showed me what a liver looks like. After he got his transplant he let me pull the staples out. I had a Netters coloring book, which he used to teach be about “why his belly was always full of water.” He died when I was 10.

To see something like that so young has an effect on you. It left me feeling like there was the world everyone else lives in, then the world of medicine. I couldn’t live in the normal world having seen what I saw growing up. I wanted (still do) to be the person who lives in the medical world. Be the one who’s there waiting when normal people are scared, tired, and sick.

Im not talking about curing people every day like some TV doctor. Most the people we see we can’t fix. What feels good is being able to look a patient or family member in the eye and say “I understand” and see the relief on their face when they realize you mean it.
 
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The Knife & Gun Club said:
I watched my dad suffer with Hep C basically from the day I was born. He was a doctor, so used the disease to teach me about medicine. We dissected a fetal pig together, and he showed me what a liver looks like. After he got his transplant he let me pull the staples out. I had a Netters coloring book, which he used to teach be about “why his belly was always full of water.” He died when I was 10.

To see something like that so young has an effect on you. It left me feeling like there was the world everyone else lives in, then the world of medicine. I couldn’t live in the normal world having seen what I saw growing up. I wanted (still do) to be the person who lives in the medical world. Be the one who’s there waiting when normal people are scared, tired, and sick.

Im not talking about curing people every day like some TV a doctor. Most the people we see we can’t fix. What feels good is being able to look a patient or family member in the eye and say “I understand” and see the relief on their face when they realize you mean it.
Click to expand...

That was beautifully said. I’m sorry about your father.
 
Because I didnt want to be a part of the yakuza anymore and i wanted to be a civilian again. Somehow I always seem to get roped back in though. I also saw a lot of suffering when I was a part of the diamond dogs. I wanted to be able to do more.
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
I watched my dad suffer with Hep C basically from the day I was born. He was a doctor, so used the disease to teach me about medicine. We dissected a fetal pig together, and he showed me what a liver looks like. After he got his transplant he let me pull the staples out. I had a Netters coloring book, which he used to teach be about “why his belly was always full of water.” He died when I was 10.

To see something like that so young has an effect on you. It left me feeling like there was the world everyone else lives in, then the world of medicine. I couldn’t live in the normal world having seen what I saw growing up. I wanted (still do) to be the person who lives in the medical world. Be the one who’s there waiting when normal people are scared, tired, and sick.

Im not talking about curing people every day like some TV doctor. Most the people we see we can’t fix. What feels good is being able to look a patient or family member in the eye and say “I understand” and see the relief on their face when they realize you mean it.
Click to expand...
Wow, this actually made me cry a little. This was basically why I wanted to be a doctor but you said it so well.
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
I watched my dad suffer with Hep C basically from the day I was born. He was a doctor, so used the disease to teach me about medicine. We dissected a fetal pig together, and he showed me what a liver looks like. After he got his transplant he let me pull the staples out. I had a Netters coloring book, which he used to teach be about “why his belly was always full of water.” He died when I was 10.

To see something like that so young has an effect on you. It left me feeling like there was the world everyone else lives in, then the world of medicine. I couldn’t live in the normal world having seen what I saw growing up. I wanted (still do) to be the person who lives in the medical world. Be the one who’s there waiting when normal people are scared, tired, and sick.

Im not talking about curing people every day like some TV doctor. Most the people we see we can’t fix. What feels good is being able to look a patient or family member in the eye and say “I understand” and see the relief on their face when they realize you mean it.
Click to expand...
I was going to make a comment to the op but then the thread got dusty
 
I have a lot of "whys" but, honestly, one of the reasons is due to all the horrible encounters I have had with sub par physicians. There are few bigger drivers to me than unwillingness to be mediocre. Too many physicians are bad at their job, I don't care if I can't change all of medicine. I will be able to impact my patients in a positive way.
 
Frogger27 said:
I sort of have two separate whys that occurred around the same time for me, so here they are.

First why

My first why started with my grandfather who was a physician... He was a first generation immigrant to this country and came here to give his family a better life. I grew up hearing stories about when my family first came to this country, we lived in a single bedroom house with 12 people in it. He was the only man in the family (the rest were either elderly, children or women) and he was soley responsible for providing for all these people. He would sit at the table every day after spending the whole day in the hospital (I am guessing he was doing some sort of shadowing type thing because he was not board certified yet in this country- he was in our original country) with an english dictionary and medical books and study his board exams. He was simultaneoulsy teaching himself English while studying for his board exams in a single bedroom home with 12 people living in it. He ended up becoming board certified in this country and having a wonderful 30 year career. His hard work and sacrifice provided my family with an amazing life in this country that we are still benefitting from today.

Jump forward to when I am alive, he ended up getting hospitalized when I was about 8 with kidney disease. There was a point where things were looking grave and we thought he was going to pass away. When in the hospital, he not only had friends and family reaching out to him, but many old patients and colleagues. Many of them wanted to tell him that they looked up to him for the way he cared for his patients. They sought the opportunity to thank him for everything he had done for them and the positive impact he had on their lives. This was the first time I realized all my grandfather had done not only for our family, but for so many other people. He as my idol, my role model, and my best friend. I wanted to be just like him and I told myself at this point that I wanted to be a physician so that I could have the type of impact in peoples lives that my grandfather did.

Why number 2:

I grew up with a father who suffered from addiction. He was in and out of rehab most of beginning of my childhood. I witnessed multiple overdoses and stretches where my father wasn't in my life. It was hard for me to understand at the time and it pained me that I did not know how to help my father. Around the same time that my grandpa was sick, my father had a drug overdose that nearly killed him. In the chaos that occurred with my father’s addiction, the altruism and care my father’s physician exhibited helped save his life. He sat my father down and told him that he needed to get clean or else he is going to die. Hearing this from a physician that he trusted sparked a light under my father. This physician went above and beyond to help my father- he was available at all hours of the day to everyone in my family, he spoke frequently with the psychiatrist and, most importantly, his guidance was the final push that my father needed to get him to agree to attend rehab after a lifetime of battling addiction. Through this, I saw that physicians have the ability to not only help their patients, but they may have a great effect on the lives of the patient’s loved ones, as well. My father had 15 years of sobriety until he passed away of a different medical condition (he died a sober man), and I will always thank that physician for being a positive influence in my fathers life/helping steer him into rehab. He helped give me 15 amazing years with my father that I will l always be eternally grateful for.

Both of these experiences made me want to use my experience to help care for patients so that some day I can have the same type of impact in peoples lives that physicians have had in mine.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for sharing. It’s incredible the breadth of experiences bring us all to the same conclusion.
 
wanderingorion said:
As we do from time to time, I have been ruminating on my "Why" for coming to medical school/going in to medicine. I feel that as we worked to get to this point, we wore our "Why" on our sleeves, writing about in essays, talking about it in interviews and with family/friends. But, now that we are here, we seem to keep it close, returning during trying times.

I'm doing a little personal research and hoping to write more about this, and I need your help.

If you have the time, please share your "Why." You don't have to share your name, and it can be as short/long as you like. How has your "Why" changed during your time here, and why? Has your "Why" been enough for you?

Even if you don't share, I hope this post helps you reconnect with the small flame that lights our way, and makes it a little brighter.

Your "Why"
Click to expand...

Money. Grew up poor in the south with average intelligence but a tremendous work ethic.
 
PhillyMed777 said:
Its a shame these days people dont believe in work ethic. They believe everything is luck, inheritance, or stealing. And those who have money must have not actually earned it. Sad, actually.
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Nothing wrong with good old fashioned hard work, But estimates vary and 35%-60% of wealthy households inherited said wealth.
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libertyyne said:
Nothing wrong with good old fashioned hard work, But estimates vary and 35%-60% of wealthy households inherited said wealth.
image.png
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Just based on what you said, this seems like good news?! I dont have inheritance but I can work hard and occupy part of the other 40-65%. Seems like plenty of opportunity.
 
PhillyMed777 said:
Just based on what you said, this seems like good news?! I dont have inheritance but I can work hard and occupy part of the other 40-65%. Seems like plenty of opportunity.
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with working hard, or getting an inheritance. Just when I see a wealthy person odds are 4-6/10 they didnt work for it. So believing the part about luck , or inheritance is not far from from reality.
 
libertyyne said:
Nothing wrong with working hard, or getting an inheritance. Just when I see a wealthy person odds are 4-6/10 they didnt work for it. So believing the part about luck , or inheritance is not far from from reality.
Click to expand...

It also takes work to maintain inherited/easily gotten wealth. Otherwise we wouldn’t see so many people squandering their money (ie celebrities, heiresses, lottery winners).
An intelligent person who inherits wealth works not only to keep it, but to grow it.
 
OrthoTraumaMD said:
It also takes work to maintain inherited/easily gotten wealth. Otherwise we wouldn’t see so many people squandering their money (ie celebrities, heiresses, lottery winners).
Click to expand...
IMO a lot less than getting the wealth to begin with. Having impulse control and learning to live within your means, even if you have a windfall, is a basic tenant of being an adult, hardly worth adulation.
 
libertyyne said:
IMO a lot less than getting the wealth to begin with. Having impulse control and learning to live within your means, even if you have a windfall, is a basic tenant of being an adult, hardly worth adulation.
Click to expand...
Agree. Some people say it's hard to stay rich when you are rich, but it's much much easier to stay rich than become rich.
 
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