Working in family medicine
I haven't written any philosophical blog posts for some time, so today I felt inspired to write about my week. 7 days ago, I started working in a small family medicine clinic in a different city. I had about 15 patients to see during my 7-hour shift, an unusually small number for a regular family medicine clinic. Patients were mostly polite, and I could work with them without any problems. The only problem was that I had two hours of commuting every day. I started listening to podcasts during my long drive from home to work. I had the time to listen to almost every podcast on my Spotify list, but finally, I ended up listening to medical podcasts.
I was quickly reminded of how privileged I was. I was working as a family doctor. That’s not something a lot of people can say. Just a few months ago, I was still studying for my last exam, and now I have the opportunity to treat patients, an opportunity to help someone. I remember how I used to look up to my family medicine doctor. From a young age, he was the one who helped me get better every time I got sick. I was lucky to have such a devoted family medicine doctor. Even while I was in medical school, he gladly allowed me to shadow him every summer break. Now that I have finally gotten into his position, I allowed myself to lose that compass.
Before working in this city, I worked in another city for two months. For the first 2 or 3 weeks, I was enthusiastic about almost every patient visit, every chart I had to do, and almost everything else. After that, my enthusiasm slowly faded because I allowed myself to fall into a routine of the job. I get to the clinic, do everything and some more, and go home. It was a pretty easy job, don’t get me wrong, but I stopped thinking about anything. My interesting job quickly turned into mechanical labor that I did without empathy, which is terrible since you need at least some empathy to work as a doctor. To get a little bit better perspective, I was working for only 4 months in total at that time, so it was shocking to me that I could lose enthusiasm that quickly. I can see how some doctors became miserable after 30 years of seeing 50 patients a day, but I couldn’t believe how easy it is for a job to become such a nuisance after only 4 months. Changing the city I work in gave me a more nuanced perspective on working a full-time job (especially jobs in which you have to communicate with people). Here are two things I learned over the last week:
Remind yourself to stay humble
I often heard from successful people online that one of the keys to success is staying humble. I didn’t believe that because many of those people are arrogant and driven to achieve more and more, seemingly never satisfied with their current situation. I often thought that humility is a facade that successful people put on in order not to lose popularity among the masses. Many successful people have some sort of audience, and being liked by their audience greatly influences their career.
It is a parallel to how medieval kings sometimes portrayed themselves as the people’s people in order to gain affinity from the common folk. Even though times have changed, some aspects of human psychology remain largely the same.
Becoming a medical doctor is by no means a small task. Suddenly, I was put into a position of authority and had to make important decisions that influenced other people's well-being. From a lowly medical student at the bottom of the food chain, I found myself in a position where I dictated how a nurse or a medical technician did their job, disregarding the fact that some nurses worked for 30 years in the field. Everyone around me started asking me questions on how to do their job, which is something no medical school prepares you to do. A sudden jump in responsibility made me realize how easy it is to become addicted to power. The rewards of being in this position far outweigh the responsibilities that medical doctors have. At least at the beginning of their career.
All of this made me think about the importance of staying humble in the medical field. I understand that people who manage others sometimes have to be a bit arrogant in order to achieve order in the workplace, but oftentimes it is easy to cross the arrogance border and become driven by that feeling of control.
From time to time, remind yourself to stay humble. It will provide you with a sense of relief that not everything is in your control, and that you have much to learn about your job. Even though I talk about this from the perspective of a healthcare worker, I am certain that it applies to many different jobs. You probably heard somewhere that if you want to get better at your job, you often need to put yourself in the position of a student. There are always people who know more about something than you do, so adapting the mindset of a lifelong learner is crucial to succeed in many fields.
Remind yourself to be grateful
Another thing I learned was the importance of being grateful for the job we do. I think this applies to many different fields, but it especially applies to healthcare. You are given a job, no, an opportunity to help other human beings. You help them when they are most vulnerable. You have the ability that almost no one has- the ability to heal.
Even though most of the work we do in family medicine doesn’t really cure people but rather supports them, there is at least one case a day when you genuinely cure someone of their illness. And because of that one case, the job is worth doing.
One of my favourite medical professors and authors is Abraham Verghese. Verghese had an amazing career in both medicine and literature and has provided some of the most impactful insights for young doctors like me.
He often talked about the importance of being a good doctor, with physical exam being one of the most important things a doctor can do. In one of his TED talks, Professor Verghese talks about the early days of his career, working with AIDS patients. Back then, there was no treatment for AIDS, no drugs to slow down the disease. He had only one tool: empathy.
Verghese goes on to say that what mattered most to those patients was the ritual of the physical exam. Both he and the patient knew that listening to his lungs with a stethoscope wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t know any new information, and the treatment would be the same. They were both aware that death was imminent due to a lack of immune response caused by HIV, but Dr. Verghese still took the time to talk to his patients, to do the physical exam, and to show empathy for their suffering.
He calls the physical examination a ritual since he helped those people pass from this world to another. He provided people with comfort that they are not alone, and that their doctor will be there even in their final moments. If this is not the most beautiful aspect of medicine, I don’t know what is. I think this is what it means to be a good doctor, and this is what makes medicine worth doing.
TL;DR:
After starting work in a new city as a family doctor, I was reminded how quickly enthusiasm can fade into routine, and how dangerous that is in a job built on empathy. Long commutes and quieter clinic days gave me space to reflect on how privileged I am to practice medicine, how easy it is to become numb or addicted to authority, and why humility matters when responsibility comes suddenly. The week reinforced two core lessons: stay humble by remaining a lifelong learner, and be grateful for the rare opportunity to help people at their most vulnerable. Inspired by Abraham Verghese, I was reminded that even when we can’t cure a disease, empathy, presence, and the ritual of the physical examination still make medicine deeply meaningful.