Surviving in Medicine: In A World of Expectations

I choose my career path when I was just 16 years old. I met a PA one night in the ER and my ADHD brain fixated on a goal and there was no arguing with me. I chose my college and my major based off this goal. I killed myself day after day to be good enough to get in. When application time came around I applied as soon as it was open. I soon found that I had gotten into my top choices and happily accepted a spot one week before my senior year of college began.

PA school itself was something I’m not sure I will ever be able to put into words. Getting in was one of the highest of highs I’ve ever experienced and then graduation was even better, however, everything in between is a blur. A blur of studying 20 hours per day, tears and mental break downs, feeing like a shell of myself to the point I lost contact with all my friends from college and most of my family. Looking back now 21 year old me was not mentally prepared for PA school it nearly destroyed me but it didn’t and for that I am extremely proud of myself.

I accepted my first job about 4 months before graduation. I took my boards a month after graduation and started at the job a month after that. My clinic is not particularly small. I work with 5 doctors and 3-4 other PAs/NPs. I treat everything from birth to death. I have lasting relationships with my patients. I’ve watched as some of my favorite patients went down hill before eventually they went to rest. I’ve watched babies I first met when they were less then 48 hours old grow into toddlers and young children. I’ve taken PA students from my Alma Mater and found my love of teaching once again. For 3.5 years I have lived the life 16 year old me dreamed of. So why when a PA student asked me if I loved my job I could not bring myself to answer yes?

These 3.5 years have taught me a lot about medicine and about people. I was in practice for only 6 months before the world shut down in March of 2020. I’ve practiced longer in COVID times then before. I watched as people refused to do simple things to keep others safe and healthy because it “infringed” on their rights. I watched as people who did everything “right” died and other came in demanding medications that I knew would only hurt them. I was told on multiple occasions that I was killing someone because I wouldn’t write them a mask exemption. I went almost 6 months without seeing my family. I was only present by phone and video calls because I was a danger to them. I went months on end without receiving any physical affection from anyone. I’d never been so starved for something as simple as a hug.

Now in 2022 you’d think things would have improved. COVID isn’t causing as many deaths, those who want to be vaccinated are, life has slowly returned to normal so you would think medicine would have returned to normal as well but it’s far from normal. There is a new lack of trust in the medical community between medical providers and patients. People do not trust us. They come in demanding things telling us that they know what works for them and if you don’t give it to them they will find someone else that will. We fight insurance on even the simplest of medications or test. We do our job and refer to specialists when necessary but half the specialist are refusing new patients so our patients come back to us expecting us to fix it and call the specialist's office demanding that they get in sooner. We live in a medical world where people trust their google searches more then their doctor or their PA. We live in a world where there are sadly just as many good caring providers as there are money hungry ones who have perpetuated the exact behaviors that I described above.

The truth of the matter is couldn’t tell that PA student that I loved my job because this wasn’t what I dreamt of. The word I practice in now was not the world I was experiencing at 16 when I chose this path. So my answer to her was simple, “some days are better then others, but I’ve never regretted my profession”.

So here is to exploring my profession and what it’s like to practice medicine in this post COVID world. Here is to us learning together how to keep yourself mentally and physically healthy enough that we can continue to fight the good fight. Here’s to talking about what it’s truly like to survive in medicine in a world full of expectations.