Well, now I feel a bit silly. After all the whining and anguishing about medicine, I've discovered that I absolutely love what I'm doing right now, despite how depressing it can be. Then again, I'm only about 1.5 weeks into it. Give me time.

I was on call a few nights ago, and accompanied the intern as we approached the bed of a patient who was bleeding to death. His skin was ghostly paper-white, presenting a stark contrast with the thick, scarlet stream of blood gushing from his mouth, down his chin and onto his hospital gown. The room stank of iron, like the smell of the toilet paper used to wipe my bloody genitals when I'm having my period. As just a student, I was helpless, standing there as a team of doctors suctioned blood out of his mouth so he wouldn't choke, and pumped pain medications into him so he could be as "comfortable" as possible while waiting to die. His eyes were huge, round, and focused on me. I couldn't meet his gaze. I didn't know what his mental status was, I didn't know if he had thoughts, if he understood what was going on. I didn't know how long it would take for him to die, and I couldn't stare at him, or have him staring at me, while it happened. It was a truly horrific sight, to see someone suffering like that, to see someone dying in such an ugly, messy way. I have seen death before, but it had always been quiet, composed, a whisper of a breath and then none. I couldn't take it anymore, and left the room. At that point, I wondered what I was getting myself into, and whether I could do this job.

Outside the room was the man's wife. She was quietly trembling, with a few tears sliding down her cheeks. We stood outside of her husband's room, silent, listening to the sounds of suctioning, beeping, shouting of the doctors. She knew that she was moments away from losing her husband, someone she obviously loved, someone with whom she had shared a life for many years. She was moments away from being alone. I ached for her, and failed to imagine what kind of grief she must be experiencing. After several excruciating minutes, I asked her about their kids. She seemed to welcome the distraction, and told me their names, and what they were doing with their lives. She exuded a mother's pride as she spoke about them. She even smiled a few times. The intern then reappeared, and after the wife said there was nothing more we could do to help, we left her waiting outside her husband's room. I went home soon afterwards. Her husband died while I lay in bed at my apartment, unable to sleep as I was haunted by images of him staring at me--so pale, so weak, so lost.

The intern told me the next day that after he died, there was a new medicine/psychiatry resident on call who was excited to practice his counseling skills on a recently bereaved family. The intern shared this information with a bit of disgust, which I shared. Sure, we're students who are using patients to learn, but hopefully we don't forget we're dealing with people, right? Not just learning tools. During my own health crisis, my medical student friends viewed my situation as another learning opportunity, as they printed me papers and rattled statistics. I kind of hated them for it; those relationships still haven't fully recovered, and probably never will. I'm not saying that I'm above such tendencies. I have some patients right now with very rare and complicated diagnoses, and while I empathize with their suffering, there is still a part of me that is fascinated by their diseases, and is excited to learn about them. I think to do this kind of work, you have to be genuinely interested in the information, and get some kind of satisfaction from it, or else you'll burn out. I keep that part tucked away whenever I speak to patients, though. I don't think it's appropriate to act excited about someone else's health crisis in his or her presence.

Most doctors, or would-be doctors, have a weird fascination with power. I remember when a former friend, now a bona fide doctor, told me about an experience on the wards, during either our first or second year of medical school (we were just babes then). He was given the task of informing a patient that she had a new diagnosis of cancer. As he described the experience, I felt an uncomfortable twinge in my belly, because he didn't seem to be at all sensitive about the terror and pain and loss the patient must have experienced at the time. Instead, he was caught up in the incredible power he had at that moment, as the bearer of such life-changing news. He kept talking about how great and amazing it was. The hell? I don't know whether he's changed, but since he's chosen a field which doesn't require much patient contact anyway, perhaps it's moot to even consider.