As a rule , I don't like books about medicine. I never read them. No Robin Cook , no Atul Gawande. I was not going to read this book as well. I knew everybody was saying a lot of good things about this one on book tube. Still I didn't want to read it. But then this book was available at a low price on Amazon sale. And I bought it.
I was in a bit of a book slump yesterday. I couldn't think of a book to read. I tried many books of different genres. But nothing was clicking. This was my last try before I decided to give up for the day and went to bed. Luckily it clicked.
Adam Kay is now a comedian. But in his previous avatar, he was a doctor in NHS. This book is about his experience of working as a junior doctor in NHS.
As I started reading this book, I realised the similarities between lives of doctors across the world. The decision to be a doctor is taken at the age of 16(In India ,you start preparing for your entrance examination, sometimes much earlier than that), when you are hardly adult enough to make decisions about your own life. The decision is taken more often than not for wrong reasons, not realizing the long years of training, hard work or hardships involved. (I remember telling someone that I want to become a cardiac surgeon, not realizing that first I have to become a MBBS doctor, then specialize and then super specialise in cardiac surgery.12 years minimum. Impossible to visualise at that age. Thankfully, by the time,I took up medicine, this dream had evaporated.) Most of us do not have a clear picture of what we would do after we finish our education.
The MBBS years are comparatively easy, they just involve a lot of hard work in form reading and memorizing. You don't make decisions about somebody's life.But when you decide to do a specialisation in a clinical branch, the real challenge starts. The long work hours, lack of sleep, pathetic salaries, even worse food & accommodation, facing wrath of patients, delivering difficult diagnoses and bad news…..Only tough minded people survive in this field. Our major problem is that this is a one way street, after spending 12 long years in acquiring this education, you have no energy to start all over again. You are stuck here for better or worse.
I finished the book inbonebday. It is written very well, I laughed aloud at many places. But I hurried through last few pages. Hurried even through the last chapter of the narrative… didn’t want to experience his pain…
He has left medicine for good now. It is sad in a way, all these years of hard work came to nothing. His story reminded me of a friend of mine, who was also a gynaec and left that branch for good, after a similar episode (less severe in implications but as traumatising as this one).
Should I think of his as a weak minded person who could not digest his mistake or a strong minded person who dared to change his profession after putting in so much efforts ? If this ( loss of a baby and the fact that the patient would never be a mother after this) event would have happened after 10 years of practice, would his decision remain the same ? The sad thing was that he put up through years of hard work,low pay, zero social life for a profession he genuinely loved and gave it up after one heartbreaking incident.
I know that I have not suffered severely in my 19 years of practice. I have faced lot of frustrations though, chiefly about the money and corporate politics. There are days ,when I think , that it is enough ,and I should retire, at the (tender)age of 46. But I do not. I know I love my job and I do it well.
But who am I to judge him so ? I have not walked in his shoes , have not suffered his pain. It is easy for me to pass judgement on somebody . May be I would have done a similar thing too…
The important thing is that he is happy now and he has written a good book which I liked...
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