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I might've become a doctor...

Everyone who knows me know that I fear Biology. I studied it when I had to, and gave it up with a sigh of relief after tenth grade. The sheer number of new words I came across in the subject terrified me.  I can dissect a plant, but an animal would've been beyond me. I love animals. I could watch Animal Planet all day, but I wouldn't last five minutes through a surgery video. I have never been one for blood and guts. The smell of disinfectant in hospitals is sufficient to make me start feeling queasy.
This was reason number one for 'Why I would never be a doctor.'

This used to be reason number two:
"I have a great deal of respect for doctors,but I can never be one - I'd go into depression". ( My standard line.)
I never understood how doctors met sick people everyday, and how they had the courage to get up every morning (or night,if they had the night shift) and watch them suffer. Most of the time the doctors would have the power to alleviate the suffering, but sometimes (and this was what really scared me) - they would not.

But today afternoon, something changed me. I was reading a book about the last months of a man who learned that he had pancreatic cancer.
After undergoing a complicated surgery to remove the tumour, the man discovered that it was back, to stay. And it was the doctor's job to tell him that and to watch the young man and his wife learn that he had just months to live. I didn't cry when I read that. The grief that I, a disconnected person on a different continent, felt was beyond tears. And that doctor told them. HE WAS THERE. He comforted them, as he had probably comforted others who had had their lives brutally cut short. My admiration and awe are not mine alone. The author echoed the same feelings.

The situation I just described was exactly why I was too scared to try medicine. But reading that story made me rethink that decision; and regret those excuses which sound so hollow now. The power to save lives is great. To dedicate your life to learning ways to save more lives is great. And to help people who have little time left live the last of their days in peace is great.

I am probably ill-suited to biology. I do not regret dropping it, but I do wish I had thought about what I was giving up when I did. And I wonder what I would do if I had to make that choice once more...


****
The book I refer to here is 'The Last Lecture' - by Randy Pausch  ( with Jeffrey Zaslow)
It was an inspiring read.
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Comments

  1. C.P. Ravikumar25 December 2014 at 15:27

    You can still become a Dr. if you earn a Ph.D.

    ReplyDelete
  2. the paintbrush25 December 2014 at 15:33

    True. That is still very much within my reach. :) Dr. Ananya has a nice ring to it. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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