Recently, I was sitting with my roommate and two close friends watching Grey's Anatomy. This is pretty much a weekly routine for the four of us and one that I covet more for the company than the actual drama we're subjecting ourselves to. At a particularly emotional moment in the show (McDreamy finally proposes to Meredith), I looked around the room and realized I was the only one not choked up with tears.
There has been a particular theme to my life for the past four and a half years since my mother died. I can't help but put everything in the greater context of life and death. My mother's vulnerability towards the end of her life made me covet my health and all the options I've been given through a privileged upbringing and a good education, but it has also has made it difficult to indulge in simple pleasures - such as crying during an emotional drama.
How could I possibly shed tears for these fictional tv characters when there was real suffering going on all around me? The current financial crisis is putting families out onto the street, children are dying of malnourishment all over the globe, and thousands are succumbing to preventable illnesses due to poor goverment policies. Yes, I realize that I can't hold myself personally responsible for all of these tragedies, but where do you draw the line between global responsibility and personal wellbeing. Is it enough to be a Mensch at the hospital, but act selfishly on your "own time"? Is it alright to be a covert shopaholic and then engage in empathetic conversation with a patient who's treatment is severly limited by their socioeconomic standing. I find it difficult to negotiate this.
Just today a close medical student friend of mine commented that she believes Kindergarden teachers should disclose their HIV status because she would certainly not want to subject her child to that risk. How can we possibly go through four years of behavioral science and patient doctor relation classes and still believe that it is alright to stigmatize the chronically ill? Should people who are HIV positive be limited in their career choices because of an unfortunate event? Should we really add to their already unbearable burden by forcing them to keep secret their greatest concern over the fear of abandonment and marginalization? THIS is coming from a medical student that knows how HIV is transmitted and what the true risks of unintentional contraction are. These are among the most educated people in society. If they can't give such patients a chance, who can?
There are many encounters like these that make me frustrated about how our society functions. There are so many times when I am disappointed about the way people chose to relate to oneanother and yet I realize that my own moral compass cannot and should not guide the actions of everyone around me.
There are so many things I feel I can be grateful for in my own life. Many little things that used to bother me - traffic delays, gaining a couple of pounds, doing badly on an exam - I now can disregard as trivial. I also take time to really indulge in little achievements in my life and most importantly find reason to be joyful about the successes of others. While many other people in my class were caught up in anxiety about not getting their number one choice when Match came around, I knew I would simply be grateful for being given the opportunity to train in a residency program somewhere. When match finally did come around and I didn't get my number one, but was still ecstatic. I recognized how much work went into this moment and how many people were instrumental in supporting my decisions up until this point. I recognized how many opportunities this would make available to me and most importantly how proud I would have made my mother. How could I disgrace her constant efforts to encourage me by being disappointed? Was this placement not so much more than other people could hope for in a lifetime, whether it was number 1 or number 13 on my wish list?
On Match day I hiked out to the only place in the city with a church. I needed to make it known how grateful I was to have made it to this culmination of my education. I wanted to pray for those that were being subjected to the Scramble and I wanted to pray for my own Match and for my classmates. I didn't ask for my number 1, but instead I asked for what would be the right for me and my husband.
I still don't know whether I should consider it a maladjustment to my mother's death that I can't cry during a drama. I DO know however that being grateful and satisfied with little successes makes you a happier person, allows you to give more to others, and has given me confidence that I can face most anything. I imagine as I continue to gain more experience working with doctors in different stages of their career and getting to know a whole new community of people in residency, I will probably grow more and more disillusioned with superficial things and maybe it will even make me a hard realist, but at least I know I am facing the world with both eyes open and with a will to change things for the better.
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