If I Weren ’ t a Doctor , I ’ d Be …
by CAITLIN WESSEL , MD
If I weren ’ t a doctor , I ’ d probably be a little more well rested . I ’ d have had fewer conversations with family and strangers trying to explain to them The Match process or normalize the realities of residency . I ’ d know a lot less about glycolysis and errors of metabolism , and probably be blissfully ignorant of the way C . diff can permeate a hallway in minutes .
Maybe I ’ d be a writer , if I had not ended up pursuing medicine . However , I would certainly be struggling to put words to the complex feeling of not understanding exactly what was lacking in my life , but still knowing that something was missing . My words would be coded with this unsatisfied longing that , with any luck , would find a home in health care journalism . I ’ d be educating our population on pressing medical topics and giving them the tools to advocate for themselves in a health care setting .
Or maybe I ’ d be a researcher , like I initially wanted to be in college ? I could be part of the team that finally discovers what predisposes some but not others to neurodegenerative disorders . Or possibly discover a cure for liver cirrhosis or drug-resistant epilepsy ? I would be behind the scenes to the beautiful dance that is clinical care and patient interaction . It could be quite rewarding … albeit a bit lonely .
Maybe I ’ d be a violinist : enjoying the technicality of fine motor movement with complex auditory and emotional processing , or maybe a physical therapist . I ’ d be helping patients continue to recover from stroke or trauma after their initial medical stabilization . Oh , or maybe a professor ? That way I could spend my career satiating my love of learning while bolstering great minds of the future .
Well , in other words , if I weren ’ t a doctor I ’ d probably be doing something within the job description . Writing , teaching , discovering , healing , caring , creating … it ’ s the joy and satisfaction that comes from these aspects of medicine that initially lured me in and now keeps me wanting more .
Upon reflection , I could probably live 10 different lives and in all of them would still end up working in some form of health care or health care-adjacent field . I do not think this “ bug ” we all have for medicine is something that can be easily shaken . How could it be ? It is no secret that this path we are on is grueling and exhausting and at times heartbreaking . There is a small degree of masochism in all of us to embark on this journey through life as a physician . But we all either chose it in the first place or continue to choose it every day because of this intangible pull inside of us . There are a hundred ways you can spend your life helping people , but there is just something different about this pull to medicine .
It is a blessing , all on its own , to even be able to get into medical
16 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE