Evan, who ran for Congress, had the motto of "Change the world", deeply reminiscent of a certain black American President. He prayed for his motto to be fulfilled, but ended up having to build an ark. This was on top of changing his fashion sense and jeopardising family, career and social standing. In the end, through deep conversations with God, he discovered what changing the world truly meant- it started from the small actions like spending quality family time and being kind to others.
So in his case, "change the world" was indeed achieved, but with sweat and tears. As for me, "change the world" meant going on medical mission trips, or discovering things through research, or just being a good doctor. And while medical school did have its high points (friends, overseas trips, marathons, playhouse, research), it had its perils.
Come a point in time, I was deeply jaded because I realised medicine alone could not change lives. During SIP I saw handfuls of patients with poorly controlled diabetes as a result of their attitudes and poor social support. I realised that showering them with pills would NOT change a single ailment of theirs because they would simply not take them, or run out of them.
Some of them had terrible ailments that had no cure, for instance a stroke with multiple severe contractures. Some of them had no insight into their situation and refused treatment. This sense of frustration and anger developed within me as I perceived the futility of our roles as doctors, not to mention the bitterness at being unappreciated.
Therefore, a couple of weeks ago I shared this with a senior, a true woman of God, that I highly regard. As we were supposed to pray for something else (you know, like those group prayers) she had to cut me off and later even after we finished praying I noticed her to be in deep silent prayer. I have no idea if she was praying over what I said since she has a lot of issues on her mind. Anyway, this was her reply, as best as I can remember
"Marcus, we as doctors are not called primarily to solve problems but to love our patients. There are a lot of unloving things going on out there but do you stop loving our patients? Even though they may do wrong, we are still called to love them. There are many things we cannot control as doctors, we are not God, and the knowledge of that is so humbling."
Yes. Throughout most of my medical school life I have assumed the point of view of the problem solver, the taskmaster. And it is easy to think that, after 5 years of education, we walk among the sick people as gods. But we do not come close. It is on the battlefield against disease that we see our inadequacies, and that of medical science itself. Patients are pumped with antibiotics and/or steroids and they may not recover. It is a tedious process, watching the process of clinical recovery stagnating.
But love? It is a total different ball game. I never thought of changing the world through love. I thought it was through cold hard science, or sound policymaking. Love is so easy, in the sense that it is freely available, no MBBS required to show it, but yet one of the hardest things. It could have been buried within years of technical training, of deep seated anger and jadedness, much like how Captain America's shield got buried in the ice.
So I suppose I could learn, but it is hard. It is tough enough putting together the clinical signs and symptoms, even tougher if your some of patients are assholes. And since we are approaching residency, we have better things to do like build the CV, who cares about love?
But as you clerk the old lady who stays with her asthmatic granddaughter in the shelter, as you learn about the teenager who was so traumatised by medical students examining her that she cried, you realise that medical science really is inadequate. A more viable option would be this important intangible so easily neglected by the cares of daily life and self centred pursuits. Although frankly I don't know how.
So difficult to understand human disease, more difficult to understand human nature. Change the world? Gotta change ourselves first.
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