Not For Me

When did I discover it wasn’t for me? Basically a question often asked of me by underclassmen regarding my deviation from Emergency Medicine (of which I’m still VP of the interest group – when are the elections already?). Essentially I can honestly and without delay state that the time was during my Internal Medicine rotation.

I liked IM enough. I figure I could be a rather great internist because of the knowledge aspect and the detective work that goes into managing patients. I really enjoyed that part of Medicine. The problem that I had, however, was that I didn’t like the patients.

And not just the patients, I didn’t like the type of patients we mostly catered to: poor, underserved, homeless, etc. The “scum of the earth” as some might put it. I thought about these patients and how most of them came to us from the ER. I evaluated the prospect that I would have to deal with these kinds of patients on daily basis many times over for year and years. And I knew I couldn’t do it.

It just wasn’t in me. I would have burned out incredibly fast had I decided to enter this field of medicine. Partly because I think many of these social parasites shirk their responsibilities and trust in others to do everything for them while continiuing their immoral behaviors. I can’t remain humble and self-less to people that I can’t even stand to talk to or interact with in some semblance of humanity. For that reason I knew EM was not for me and I believe that these patients would be better off without me as their “primary care giver”.