By now I can tell through instinct who’s the healthcare professional that’s been burning with passion to be amongst those hospital walls. I realized I was one when I was about 15 and wanted to help sick people feel better, because most of the time I felt quiet sick for wildly unknown reasons and wished someone would notice. (Hint: the reasons are mostly known now, but I still feel sick many days of the month, nonetheless).
The reason was simple, and there was no grand scheme or wild plan. I just wanted to cure cancer or at least contribute to that. And since the plan to go to medical school went down the flames as soon as I graduated high school, I realized I had to take a detour. Pharmacy school and then a career at a prestigious cancer center sounded like a good deal. Then the six years of education was done and I was in the midst of it. And I started thinking perhaps I wasn’t really cut out for this.
Enter the real, chaotic pharmacy work. Loads and loads of people with loved ones, having sat in waiting halls for some hours to see the doctor, to get their chemo or their blood drawn, and then to get their medications. Some people were understanding enough, and would look to my window with tired, hollowed eyes and would see the long queue ahead. They would just leave for a smoke outside or a small snack to pass the time. Others would be bitter, exhausted, and having the worst day of their lives, and would come to the window screaming about their prescription being late, while they’d barely been waiting there 10 minutes. The worst part? I couldn’t blame either. And through time and exhaustion, I started hating both types of people, and then myself.
What medical dramas had ruined for me was the actual experience of helping people. Because it’s rarely ever as romantic or heartfelt the way they portray it. When someone died where I worked, it’s often a code blue in the ICU — or the floor, then a transfer to the ICU if the patient’s heart reverts after CPR — then the doctor talking to the family to break the news, then it’s business as usual; pharmacy (me) is called to replace the opened crash cart, post-mortem care procedure and notes, call housekeeping, and the cycle keeps going. The patient has transferred into the other world, their family’s world may be stopped for a while now, but ours just kept going. The patient that comes in the room afterwards probably has no idea about the cycle of life and death those workers have been grinded into; he’s upset that he’d been admitted for two hours and no doctor has come by to see him, he’s upset the nurses keep waking him up to measure his blood pressure when really, he’s fine (then why are you in a hospital, sir?), and he’s upset he’s not allowed to take his medications when he has life-altering surgery tomorrow that needs him fasting.
People who gravitate towards healthcare professions with burning passion are oftentimes the givers; those who take immense pleasure and fulfillment in taking care of others and seeing them through difficult times. They often have great emotional resilience, are bound to be highly empathetic, and are usually great rule-followers. Others may fall on the outskirts of this description, but this is just a wild generalization based on personal experience and countless people I’ve met in the industry.
What really happens here is called compassion burnout; those same people who felt like they could give on and on for eternity end up in ashes, because they’d been trying too hard and burning too bright, without real payback. The caveat here is we don’t always expect patients to be nice and say thank-you’s all the time — these people are, at the end of the day, having the worst time of their lives — but the real issue here is the management that’s watching over this wheel, turning and grinding those who enter it.
I read an interesting article that stated that high pressure from superiors was one of the leading causes of healthcare burnout, alongside work hours, time pressure, etc. None of the studies or articles you read in this field of psychology will ever state that the patient is the issue. Because the whole idea of becoming a healthcare provider is giving evidence-based and compassion-based care to your patients, no matter how well they respond to the level of care you provide. We start hating the world — including our patients, ourselves, even our loved ones — out of anger, not out of pure evil that makes us unfit for the humanitarian mission of the job.
Our organizations and healthcare systems have failed those who love people the most. They have failed the most compassionate, the most passionate, and the most altruistic souls that enter the grinding wheel. We were treated at the hands of people who could’ve been leading multi-million-dollar commercial enterprises but somehow find themselves in positions of power over the most delicate process in the world.
Safe to say, when I realized I was becoming of no use to the institution, and the job was doing me more harm than good, I quit. And after a few months, I still look back fondly on memories of my patients; The old man whose kids are all abroad, taking out his pen and asking me to write down the specific medication instruction. The kid with severe ADHD who climbed into the pharmacy window and had us running in circles after him. The sweet, dutiful daughters and sons of severely ill people who are learning every piece of information like true professionals. I’ll forever cherish and hold these people close to me.
I don’t think I’ve ever really hated people. Especially my patients. I just hated the powers above my control that made me too tired to love helping them.
Please note that this piece was originally published on Medium through The Integrative Wellness Journal. You can read it here
