REFLECTIONS: Be a Physician?
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festive family dinner attended by the senior members was when the father of the house was called to the phone. A long conversation followed. Curious, the rest of the family asked what the crisis was about. He said that his son, in the second year of medical school, wanted to quit and change course. No sympathy did the latter get, but instead a big lecture on why he should not.
This sounds like dictatorship regarding the personal choices of the student concerned, but not necessarily. This happens in cultures when a child’ s future, depending on his abilities, is decided and nurtured by parents, until the child is ready to pull his own weight and worth in this competitive world.
Parents themselves, if not well-off financially, sacrifice their own resources to support these favored ones( or their siblings with different talents), walking together along a cooperative road until the young ones reach independent success and usefulness.
Of course, this does not usually happen in this land of free choice, the U. S., where one is taught to paddle one’ s own canoe, with
by TERESITA BACANI-OROPILLA, MD or without help. It reminds me too of how a young bird is taught to fly out of the nest, when its wings at last are strong enough to withstand the winds of change.
Nowadays, the health field has expanded not only to physicians who in their long studies and training have“ called the“ shots” and cured the sick.” They may consult specialists to aid them or later refer them for special therapies, but continue to keep track of those who have trusted them with their health and lives.
Thus, it is an honor to be trusted, but also a great responsibility, not to leave their patients without answers, without a plan for future care, if the problem is not resolved to everyone’ s satisfaction.
Would one then still want to be a physician? It is a lifetime commitment! But also, it’ s a lifetime of fulfillment!
By the way, whatever happened to the hapless scolded second-year medical student? He became a successful ENT surgeon. Pleasing to him were the cleft lips and palates and faces that he repaired, changing the lives of his patients for the better. These, among other medical therapies that doctors in his field do.
Should you be a physician? MAYBE?
Dr. Bacani-Oropilla is a retired pediatrician and psychiatrist. April 2025 31