Elegance
There was a confirmation ceremony for newly inducted doctors last week, where we had to get up on a stage and promise that we’ll be obedient dogs for [company]. Nobody really wanted to be there. Most tried to make the most of it and to catch up with old friends.
I overheard a conversation between two girls. One was complaining that she had been working nonstop for 2 weeks. The other heard that and dismissed it with a *literal* wave of her hand, “girl, we have all been working nonstop for 2 weeks”.
Not to make it into a competition, but I fell sick yesterday and got my first full day of rest in the past 3 weeks. It’s a bit unsettling that this is the norm in any line of work. It’s unsettling that we all realize this isn’t healthy yet persist, even making it a sick race to the bottom.
Older doctors lament the death of our “passion for work”. In a feedback session for junior doctors that turned into a smackdown of our poor work ethic, department heads and senior consultants took turns taking jabs at the working mindset of current doctors. I made an attempt to present our junior batch of physicians as more than just a monolith of lazy wage thieves, but to little avail.
It’s difficult to be cordial to senior doctors.
I’m fairly certain that this urge to speak down to those lower down in the hierarchy is inherently human. It makes wonder if I would give into the same tendencies when (if) I persist and rise to a position of leadership. The mileage on a doctor isn’t great, anyways. Those who get to talk down, have the chance only for the short and bright years before chronic occupational hazards catch up to them.
Recognizing that I have voluntarily forgone my right to work life balance, it is a stretch to call whatever I’m doing right now an exercise in work life balance. There is no doubt in my mind that such a statement incites an urge in most older physicians to tell me how good things are these days in another desparate race to the bottom. Remember though, French peasants died of starvation and cholera, but they didn’t have to work in winter.
I started work thinking that the experiences I have and the people I meed will inspire emotions, and that those emotions would get imprinted on paper as poetry. I’m barely 3 months into work, and I find myself detaching from my patients in a bid to maintain basic civility.
There have been sweet, kind, and beautiful souls. I have seen them in patients and healthcare workers alike. The opposite has been true.
My father wrote a lot when he was in seminary. His language swings between singing, stinging, and I want to write like that. I envy the levity by which he carves memories into short pages. It's just so elegant.
I don’t remember it well, but I thought I was onto something when I still wrote poetry.
Are life-giving actions what make me more human? Or are life-giving actions what sustian a sense of humanity?
The former was true before starting work. That line of thinking made poetry into something optional. A cherry on top of a pretty great sundae.
It has become increasingly apparent that for me, poetry has become a freezer, struggling to keep the sundae from collapsing into entropic disarray.
If my only opportunity to write comes when I am sick, I would be in pretty big trouble.
With love,
Comments
Post a Comment