This past week, I attended my first ever Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) conference. It was a joint event with the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) ICAAC, a feat that has not been done in recent years. To say I was overwhelmed with the educational options and my senses numbed by the extravagant pharma and other industry representation is an understatement. They reported 13,000 registrants. Wow! I came away with awe seeing, meeting, and hearing the voices of so many leading experts in the field of infectious diseases whose research and guidelines I have read. Physicians with letters after letters after their names and active roles in so many organizations, sub-committees, advisory boards … not to mention their honours. Physicians I wanted to be when I grew up before reality sunk in. I’m a failure!
As the end of my fellowship training in infectious diseases comes to a close and I’m seeking job opportunities “in the real world” more confused than ever, I admit I was encouraged to hear these world experts and seasoned ID physicians in the audience disagree over management of what I thought to be basic aspects of the field – conditions whose management I thought I would have perfected myself by the end of my training. I guess that’s why they say the call to medicine is a call to life-long learning. Sigh!
I can easily say that I left the conference with a rock-bottom sense of personal accomplishment. I’m never going to be known out there as an expert in such-&-such! Self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe. But my research year has shown me that life is not for me. I can’t seem to get it together. I’m so exhausted yet my schedule is better than it was last year. Emotionally, I’m probably a mess as I wonder about what I have achieved (nothing!) in the past few years of this so-called medical training. I wonder if I am prepared to face the world of insurance companies and the business of medicine so to speak without the protection of the academic world I have lived in. On top of that, I feel so dehumanized. How? How? I acknowledge that all this pressure is coming from within. Self-induced pressure. I’m driving myself crazy. Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like?
So, I found it timely, maybe a bit encouraging to come across this New York Times article today – Medical Student Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care. I actually think I was happy during medical school with the exception of a few emotional issues related to the usual – boys, weight, appearance etc. This report though describes what residency and to some degree fellowship has been for me. I don’t want to say it has been hell, but I certainly have not been happy. Correction. I’ve been down-right miserable. I’m probably dysthymic . Isn’t that what the point of life is? To be happy? Am I wrong? Is that too much to ask for?
BURNOUT – Professional distress in three domains: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low sense of personal accomplishment.
I shake my head. How did I get here? Better yet, how do I get out of here?
11 percent of all the students surveyed also reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year.
Okay! I’m not going to say I have contemplated suicide. I haven’t. But I have thought, what if? What if I were no longer here? Would it matter? To whom? Life will still go on, right? I mean, yes, my family and friends will mourn me in a time-frame that is culturally and socially proper, but they would move on. Birthday celebrations, Christmas, Easter, weddings, graduations, LIFE will still happen for them. So then why am I suffering like this with my lack of self-worth? On the other hand why am I complaining? Do I think I’m the only one who has it bad? I should be happy to be in the situation that I’m in. TOUGHEN UP FOR GOODNESS SAKE!! For real though, I’m amazed how my sensitive soul has made it this far for I am the quintessential cry-baby.
But the abuse and public humiliation in medical training is real. If that is not enough in the beginning we pay for this privilege and then in the middle take meagre salaries for more of the same if not worse all the while being endlessly threatened by the thought that a future mistake on our part, malpractice they call it, could end up destroying what we’ve worked so hard to achieve.
Awwwwww!!!! OKAY! Enough! I’m going to try to enjoy the rest of the day.
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