Perhaps ultimately, it is happiness that matters. Everything we do - well-baby check-ups, appendectomies, blood pressure management, colonoscopies, hip replacements - is measured in the medical community in terms of mortality, function, complications. Even palliative care literature couches outcomes in "quality of life," and for scientific, quantitative, comparative research, such terms might be necessary. But I think what we're truly getting at, what really really matters is happiness.
On that note, I am going to take a week off this blog. I'll be back in a week. I am happy. Are you happy?
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In ancient Greece, the asclepion was a healing temple dedicated to Asclepius, the God of Medicine. Asclepius learned the art of surgery from the centaur Chiron and had the ability to raise the dead. The Rod of Asclepius is a roughhewn branch entwined with a single serpent.
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Hi! I am Craig Chen, a third year resident physician in anesthesiology at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics. I went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to medical school, I studied philosophy and biology at Stanford University, along with a minor in creative writing.
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2 comments:
I'm happy reading your blog! ;)
I think it's possible a lot of us including me have this mentality where we think we won't be happy until we achieve...a high GPA...a high MCAT score...a high USMLE score...graduate med school...match into the residency we really want in the place we really want...become an attending...and so and so forth. It's hard for me to be happy just in the moment and content with all things. I feel like if I won't be truly happy until I've finally made it. But then I'm chasing happiness rather than finding it.
I suppose I should be happy for what I have already achieved and where I already am, but at the same time look and hope for better tomorrows.
I think we all struggle with this problem. In a field or career characterized by endless training, exam after exam, a towering hierarchy, we think of success and happiness as achievement of the end-point, reaching the top of the pyramid. But this would be a recipe for a decade of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. I'm not sure what a good solution is, but I've found for myself that as I become more proficient, get more experience, become more comfortable, and receive more independence, the feeling that I'm "waiting for something in the future" goes away. Also, I find a lot of nonwork things to be the happiest in my life.
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