We are not gods.

I am not brilliant. As much as my folks like to brag about me to neighbors and distant relatives, and as much as I often envisage myself shining among the doctors revered by everyone for their genius, well, realistically speaking I’m just not.

 

I’m no Jun Ronquillo, or JJ Lao, or Tom Lo—brilliant doctors in the making who can rattle off the pathophysiologic nitty gritty of say, SIADH, or the mechanisms of action and administration of heparin versus warfarin, or the correction of all the electrolyte imbalances you can get out of a chronic kidney disease, all off the top of their magnificent heads. To be able to even come close to their abilities, I’d have to review and put into practice everything I’d have learned over and over, and over and over, and over and over.

 

But I’m not here to put my lack of intellectual luster under the spotlight. On the contrary, I’m here to talk about something which I believe is just as important for a doctor to have—heart. Compassion and humility. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the people I just mentioned have compromised their compassion and humility in the name of medical acumen. In fact, these doctors are exemplary in their patient care and are actually very humble (well, except for Jun aka Not-A-Friend-Not-Even-A-Neighbor-Anymore whose humility is subject to question… hehehe, just kidding, Ex-Neighbor!).

 

Seriously, I’m no Mother Teresa incarnate either. But—and this I humbly say, I try to be.

 

When I first entered medical school I was very proud of myself. I thought of myself as being very smart, being in the 99^th percentile in the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) and being among the top 160 students privileged enough to be accepted into the top medical school in the country.

 

That was then. Well, I admit that every now and then I do enjoy ruminating on the thought that for once in my life I did simulate a whiz kid. And yes, I confess to taking immense pleasure in the impressed look that people give me when they ask me what it is that I do.  But you see, I have come to realize that that pride can be dangerous, as it leaves one predisposed to being an overly haughty and, consequently, unfeeling doctor.

 

About a year ago I went out with a friend who, at that time, was thinking about going to medical school. When he asked me why I wanted to be a doctor, I told him it was because I had a thing about being in control. By that I meant that I wanted to be armed with a medical education because I did not want to be left in the dark, afraid and unknowing of what to do, should anything of a health-related sort befall me or my loved ones. I suppose my friend misunderstood me, because when I threw his question back at him, he replied, “Oh, I know what you mean. I want to be a doctor because I want to play God.”

 

Now, looking back, I find that statement scary. Sure, it would seem as if we can hold the life of a person in our hands, or have the power to determine the physical, mental and functional capacity of a person. We doctors are capable of so many things, that we tend to be so full of ourselves and forget that we are merely middlemen in the plans God has laid out for us.

 

I don’t intend for this to come off as a theological entry. Rather, let this be my way of apologizing to everyone who in some way or another begrudges doctors for being the pompous assholes that we all sometimes tend to be. Doctors are, after all, only human. But let it be known that I am deeply humbled, and it is not just because I am not brilliant, and it is not so much the phenomenon of being a small fish cast into bigger waters.

 

I am truly, deeply humbled, because slowly but surely the concept of us doctors being here to serve and help others is being inculcated in me. Yes, that might sound like bollocks coming from me, but you do have to credit my UP Medicine education and PGH exposure for that. Those, as well as recent unfortunate events which I am not at liberty to disclose. But no, no, no. I am not about to rush off to the far-flung bucolic reaches of the country and be a doctor to the barrio just yet.

 

Essentially what I would like to drive at here is that the challenge of being a doctor is not just limited to keeping up a perpetual life of study, and ridding the world of disease, saving lives, evacuating cerebral hemorrhages, reducing fractures, correcting imbalances, repairing malformations, enhancing beauty, and what have you. The tremendous challenge of being a doctor is also defined by the ability to improve a person’s quality of life, to alleviate his fears and apprehensions regarding his disease or abnormalities, to be a source of comfort. To cure, realistically we can only do sometimes. To relieve, at best we can do that often. But to comfort—that is something that we doctors ought to be able to do always.

 

I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I have been an angel sent from heaven to bring a smile to the faces of all the patients that I have handled so far. I do have my cross days, and you really cannot please everyone. But I try. And really, there is nothing like that fuzzy feeling you get out of being greeted with a warm “Good morning Doctora” when a patient or his family passes you by in the hallways of PGH, or receiving gifts from your patients. It is knowing that you have touched a person’s life, albeit briefly.

 

Of course, we cannot underrate the value of being the best doctors that we can be, and it is indeed our job to provide quality patient care. But as important as it is for patients to have a competent doctor looking after them, they also need to know that they have a doctor who will not see them as just a job, someone who really cares, who will really sit down with them, look them in the eye, show them compassion and empathy, and be humble enough to accept that doctors are not omnipotent gods, but instruments of healing.

 

Allow me to end this with one of my favorite quotes from the first season of Lost, which I believe I have already used in one of my earlier blog entries. While being condoled for the death of her husband, one of the plane crash survivors told Jack (played by Matthew Fox), “You have a nice way about you. Patient, caring… I suppose that’s why you became a doctor.”