Going into Medicine?

 

"Do you think any of your kids will be doctors some day?"

I looked over at the lady who asked me the question.  I knew she was just curious about the personalities of my children and if any seemed to have an interest in medical things.  "I don't really know," I replied.

"Would you want them to go into medicine?"  She asked me.

It was and is a tough question to answer.  I have found life as a family doctor in a small town to be stressful.  The hours are long.  There are deliveries to be done, nursing home work, hospital patients to see, and full clinic schedules to work through.

Then, as I read Facebook posts and talk to physicians in other areas of the country, I find myself believing that many have lost confidence in and respect for their doctors.  What is the real point of even seeing a family doctor when you can google your symptoms and write down a list of the tests you want done and specialists you want to see?

If your only reason for being in medicine is financial, you will burn out pretty quickly.

Family Medicine, at least in a small town, is different.  What keeps me going is not the detective work of finding the next unusual disease, it is the people.  Old and young people who I get to walk beside as they go through valleys and up mountains.  Over that time, there is a trust that develops that is hard to explain.

My patients know I'm not God and that I don't know everything.  They also know that when I don't know an answer, I will work with them until we find something.  When they come back from the specialists with the worst possible answers, we will sit together and talk and cry and then pray for strength.

It may not be as easy as it used to be to struggle out of bed at 3 o'clock in the morning to welcome a new life into this world, but it is just as rewarding as ever when you hear the infant's first cries and see the love the mom has for her child.

Life is a journey and I get to walk beside people through the best and the worst parts of their journeys.  That is a blessing.

And so, I come back to the question, would I want my children to go into medicine? 

I suppose this is all a rambling way of saying that I would, if they feel called to do it.  For medicine is more than an occupation, it is a calling.  It is one with high rates of burn out but also one with some of the highest rewards I know.  If God calls them to that, I know He'll also give them the grace to succeed.

He's surely done that for me.

Addicted to Oxygen

"I need to order you some home oxygen, Barbara," I told the older lady sitting across from me.

"Oh, no, Dr. Waldron, don't say that," Barbara said in an upset voice.

"Well, your oxygen level out there was only 86 percent and truthfully, there have been a couple of other times in the last three months that it was this low.  I know you didn't want it when we talked before, but I really think you would feel better if you had some."

Barbara had COPD and obviously wasn't doing very well with it.  "Well, Doc," she said.  "I guess I'm just afraid of getting addicted to oxygen.  You know they say that once you get started on it, you're sort of hooked."

I chuckled a little.  "You've been hooked on oxygen for quite awhile and so have I.  The question isn't whether you need oxygen, it is just a question of what percentage of oxygen it takes to keep your oxygen "level" up in your blood stream.  The air around is only 20 percent oxygen and that isn't enough to keep your level up any more."

Barbara looked down at the floor.  I could see from the purplish tint of her fingers that the pulse ox meter had not lied, but she still wasn't ready.  "I'll think about it," she said.  "I'll let you know if I want it."

I did understand what she was saying.  She didn't want to be tied to an oxygen tank that she needed to carry with her wherever she went.  At the same time, she, like the rest of us, was already dependent on oxygen for life, the same as she was dependent on food and water.  To call the need for these things an "addiction" is to misunderstand our relationship with them.

I think there is a certain thoughtlessness that comes with our dependence on these basics of human life.  Air, food, and water are just there when we need them and so we just don't think about them. It is only when we start running low on any one of them that we realize their importance.  Even more so, comes our relationship with God.

The Apostle Paul said of God, "Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being."  We are all dependent on Him for our very lives, whether or not we realize it.

In the end, it is best not to struggle against it, but to lean into it.  I know that this is the relationship that has sustained me through many a hard day's battle.  There is just no need to fight Him when I need Him so much.

It would be easier to fight my addiction to oxygen.

Helping Tom Brady

"Oh, Dr. Waldron, It's so good to see you,"  Edna cleared some things off the wheelchair sitting beside her bed.  "Please sit down."

"It's good to see you too," I told her.  "How are you doing?"

"Not so good,"  Edna said.  "You know, I saw my stomach specialist last week and he bumped by lactulose up to four times a day!  Now I just can't get out of the bathroom.  Do you think he was having a bad day, or do you think I upset him?"

"I'm sure he's trying to keep toxins from building up in your system,"  I told her.

"Well, I guess that's a good thing,"  Edna said, a little doubtfully.

We talked about a few other things and then she seemed to brighten.  "That was quite the Super Bowl," she said.

"I guess it was."

"I was watching it," the elderly woman told me.  "And I just knew that the Patriots were going to come back and win it."

"Really," I said.  She could have made a lot of money gambling if she really knew that.  "How did you know that?"

"Well, you know the Falcons were really beating the Patriots and I saw Tom Brady sitting there and he looked so discouraged and so I just said a prayer for him:  'God, help Tom Brady win this game so he's not so discouraged.'"

"That's when he started playing better and winning the game."

I was impressed.  Not that Edna's prayer had changed the course of the Super Bowl -- I'm sure there bunches of folks praying for their team to win on both sides -- but that she had seen Tom Brady and identified him as a human in need.  To most folks, Tom Brady is a quarterback, a really wealthy man who makes more money on a Sunday than most of us will see in ten years.  To her, he was a discouraged man who was in need.

I truly believe that love begins with vision.  You cannot help people in need if you do not see them, particularly if you choose not to see them and their needs.  Having seen them, we must reach out to help them, as best we can.

There are an awful lot of hurting people in this world who need help.  I pray that we would have vision to see them and try to touch their lives for good.

Even hurting NFL quarterbacks.

A Little Oil

I sat on the side of the hospital bed.  My patient had not moved as I entered the room.  I touched her arm and spoke to her without any response.  I examined her and then moved over to where her son was sitting.

"With how bad her stroke is and how little she's responded so far, there's not much more that I can do," I said.  "It's probably best to keep her comfortable."

Her son nodded somberly. "Thank you," he said.  "Thank you for being such a good doctor for her -- and thank you for being more than a doctor."

I sat silently.  I had done little.  I had no amazing skill or talent to bring, but somehow the little I had give over time had made a difference.  My mind flipped to a story from the Bible that I had read recently.

It was the story of a widow with heavy debt.  She and her sons were about to be sold into slavery to pay that debt and in desperation, she went to the prophet Elisha and told him of her troubles.

Elisha asked her what she had in her home.  The answer was almost nothing.  If she'd had gold or silver or jewels, she would have used them to pay her debt already.  All she had was a little olive oil in a jar.

At this point, I suppose, she hoped that the prophet would tell her to go to a cave or dig behind the third date palm and she would find a huge treasure that would pay her debt off and buy her a new home in the suburbs.  Instead, the prophet told her to borrow every container she could find and pour her oil into them and then sell the oil to pay the debt.

So often, we look at the things we don't have or the talent we do not possess and wish that God would give us more.

That isn't His way.  God uses what we do have -- little as it is -- if we will but give it to Him and follow His way.  He would rather use a small town doctor who follows Him than all the specialists out there who follow their own path.

A little oil in God's hands is worth more than an oil well gushing out oil in the desert.  Better to give Him the little that we have and watch Him multiply it and help us bless others in the process.