[This is my first journal entry (a reflective writing exercise) for my Health and Human Values class.]
Toward the close of today’s
lecture session, Dr. M posed the following question: “How are we
motivated by the joy of others to join in their joy, and by the suffering of
others to do something to relieve it?” (He
went on to attribute such responses to the activity of mirror neurons in the
brain.) This question drove me to reflect
on one aspect of medicine which I expect will challenge me in the near future,
especially once I am permitted to interact with patients: the necessary balance
between maintaining emotional distance from their pain, and allowing compassion
and empathy to inform my caregiving.
A dear friend of mine recently
commented to me, “S, you are no passive observer of life.” Not only am I inclined to agree with him, but
I am also convinced that this kind of fire will serve me well as a
physician. The passion itself deserves
explanation, of course, as it is a manifold creature – it includes anger (both righteous
and unrighteous, I admit) as well as compassion. In the context of my fast-approaching entry
into medical school, I often feel compelled to consider my capacities for all
of these emotions, but I want to use this particular space now to focus on compassion.
I am, by nature, the kind of
person who feels deeply, no matter what the emotion. Naturally, this character trait has always rewarded
me with substantial and fulfilling relationships in my life. However, it also comes with an important limitation:
its tendency to drive me into distress, and sometimes even incapacitation (at which
point, of course, I always try to employ appropriate coping strategies). Seeing another person’s pain occasionally causes
me to wonder what kind of significant difference I, a single physician, will
ever be able to make in this broken world.
It’s a paralyzing experience indeed, and one that hits hardest when I
encounter the stories of patients who suffer from illnesses with which I have a
personal connection. (I have already had
one such experience in class, and today was only the second day!) So I expect that both as a medical student
and as a physician, I would do well to constantly check myself – to ensure that
I am never becoming too emotionally involved with my patients. At this point, I am not sure about how best
to conduct this kind of self-evaluation.
However, I expect that I will learn more than enough about this at medical
school (if not formally, then at least experientially).
I am reminded now of something
written by Ann Voskamp, a favorite blogger of mine: “Compassion isn’t merely a
vague sense – but a feeling so strong that it causes you to
bend: it shapes your body, your life,
into a response…it’s birthed out of the Latin ‘pati’ and ‘cum’ and it means ‘to
suffer with’. Compassion chooses to
suffer with the sick, to be kicked in the gut, to weep with the weak, to pray
with the powerless, to cry with the castoffs.
Compassion is the condition of being fully
with.”
[i] Indeed, there will come a day when another
human being entrusts himself/herself to my professional care, and I will gladly
accept that challenge, that person’s burden.
I
want to be shaped into a person who, as well as “suffering with”
her patients, has the ability and acumen to respond with a therapeutic touch,
whatever that may mean (i.e. a drug, a referral, or even just a simple conversation).
That has always been my reason for
pursuing medicine: I want to be with those who hurt, firstly so that we
can be human together…and then, using all of the knowledge and
experience I will accrue in the years to come, so that I can heal. To use Voskamp’s phrasing, I want to bend. But like any human response, bending involves
complexities of which any future physician should be prepared to address on a
personal level. I want to bend, yes, but
not to the point where I break and cannot serve. I want to be motivated by suffering, yes, but
not to the point where suffering is all I can see. So it’s my hope, now, that the next chapter
of my education will teach me how to find the balance I need.
