Medicine: profession and work

It seems clear that medicine cannot be lived entirely as a business or job. This is not a duality, but a dialectical, dynamic relationship is established that will continue to change throughout one’s professional life. And this also raises important questions Examines the role of work in our lives and how we derive satisfaction from itThe only one we have and will ever have.

There is no doubt that, increasingly, As we grow our business, we doctors are losing our sense of satisfaction, feeling like pieces of gear, like simple executives who have no prospects for growth or improvement. Working in a hospital or primary care, so often the center of our lives, our identity, has for many people become a burden that must be endured. In disappointing reality, it is, at best, an honest way to live life, nothing more.

structural crisis

The pandemic, while initially giving us back partially our service identity (see Appreciation and Recognition of Doctors’ Efforts), rather aggravated the problems of the profession: poor working conditions, insecurity, lack of decision-making capacity and those influence in decisions that affect us, The belief that “the system” is failed and does not allow us to function the way we want, These criticisms, all well-founded but sometimes diffuse, reflect a malaise long before the pandemic.

In such moments, of dissatisfaction and confusion, It is important to remember that our loyalty and commitment is to our patients, Not with the institutions in which we work when they fail (us), but with the human lives that are in need. This is a message to give to doctors in training, who sooner or later will be caring for the sick humans we care for today, and even ourselves when we get sick. They should also know that without effort, without dedication, they will not be able to acquire the skills required to become competent doctors.

commitment to another

The call to business is not a form of manipulation (there are others that I will describe one day), but a reminder that therapy is based on commitment to our sick fellow human beings, the pay, the working conditions, the frustration, the hopelessness. And despair.. Ultimately, I have to ask myself: How would I want to treat myself or the people I love when I need care?

In moments of difficulty and tribulation, if such exist, we must first love and ask ourselves why we chose therapy. inform about this Our commitment is not with the Third World, nor with some imaginary patient, but with daily work in this Spain of the 21st century.Sometimes expensive and harsh.

Pray for the sick and those who care for them.