A Reminder of Real Love
Author: Mehak Dagar
Keywords: doctors, love, women, medicine
A medical student with a bag of O negative blood, running eccentrically through the hospital corridor to make sure the blood reaches the OR on time,
A nurse hunching over a patient’s chest with all her strength trying to get a pulse, A surgeon who just identified a bleeder and ligated it,
An obstetric surgeon who delivered a baby stuck by its own head,
An orthopedic surgeon who took that limb away only to see her patient take up a new sport,
An anesthesiologist who got a bilateral air entry on a difficult intubation,
A plastic surgeon who’s patient finally loves her new nose,
A psychiatrist who sees her suicidal patient living a healthy life.
And many more such women in medicine,
Each one of them, in their own way, safe a life every day.
Someone stays up the whole night monitoring a patient’s urine output,
A mother misses her daughter’s first birthday to stitch up a wound,
A daughter turns up last for a family dinner again after attending to someone else’s family’s concern.
We lose a lot of things that can never be bought back by money,
There is no ‘best employee of the month’,
No badges,
No stars,
No one asks that doctor for a selfie who saved their lives,
No pat on the back.
From managing 300 patients a day to being mocked at missing to mention one patient’s blood pressure, we have seen it all.
It’s our job. We chose it. We’re assumed to be okay.
Except,
The cardiac monitor showing a pulse after a pulseless electrical activity,
The flat line in the ECG showing a P wave,
That. That is our appraisal, the life we just saved.
And when we realize we have the power to do so, there is nothing more addictive, nothing more sickening, and nothing more maddening than medical science. Nothing else can give you an adrenaline rush so powerful. We give up our own lives for theirs, but in hindsight, every bit of it is worth it. No one pats our back; we pat our own back,
We are our own protagonist,
We wear our own cape and crown,
We save our own selves and we save them,
This love-hate relationship makes us a Doctor.
We practice real love.
About the author: Mehak Dagar is a final year medical student, soon to graduate and hoping to be a part of internal medicine community (Instagram: @mdust02).
