Dare to Care

Difficult challenge. I sometimes think it would be easier to be a doctor if I didn't care. Didn't care when patients or family members yell at me, accuse me of keeping secrets, of being in the pay of drug companies, of wilfully letting their children/relatives suffer, demanding what I have no power to give. It would be easier if the hurts I can't heal I could just forget about, not care about. It would be so much easier if I could just wave my magic wand and make it all better - oh, I forgot my magic wand today, I'll have to put an IV in instead. No, there's no other way. Yes, it will hurt. No, I don't do this for fun. No, I can't guarantee it will go in first time. Yes, I will do my best. Yes, I promise. No, there's no other way.

Sometimes I just sneak away from the ward for a few minutes - to the chapel, to the resident's room, somewhere I can get away from the demands, the suffering, the noise. Somewhere I can hear myself think for long enough to give it to God - to remember that I'm not in control, that it's not up to me. Then I take a deep breath and dive back into doing the best I can, doing as much as I can, making the best decisions I can - that's all I can do.

The memories are still agonizing though. Working on a baby for over an hour, knowing that it is already dead. The three year old who suddenly died in the middle of the night, and I still don't know why. The woman who went to ICU and died in the night - was that my fault? The man whose morphine I wrote up for 24 hours and it was given in a single hour - how could I have prevented that? It is only through the grace of God that I don't have a death on my conscience (so far) - how will I cope when the day comes? I don't kid myself that any doctor can go a whole career and never make a fatal mistake. That thought frightens me - how can I not care about that?

I see families, children, individuals in their moments of greatest stress and weakness and fear and pain. How can I possibly look at that every day, and still care? How can I not care?

"When we dare to care, then we dicover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts."

This is from the Lent book of meditations, and it is true. The more I live, the more true I realize it is. So, I keep going, I keep caring, as I would wish to be cared for. I used to wonder what to say to parents whose child had died. Now I know - nothing. There is nothing I can say to make it better. Still, even in the midst of the agony, when I can do nothing else, say nothing to help - I can still care.