There are moments that remind me what being a doctor is really about.
Not the qualifications hanging on the wall, the years of training, the professional titles or even the long hours spent in hospitals. Sometimes, it is simply about being unable to walk away when someone needs help.
Recently, a close friend of mine reminded me of this in the most extraordinary way. She is a committed doctor, a mother of young children and someone who, like so many working parents, juggles the competing demands of professional and family life. Yet, in the middle of a 5K run, she stopped to help someone who had suffered a heart attack. She was there to exercise, enjoy some time for herself and with her children, and perhaps take a brief break from the responsibilities of work life. Instead, she found herself in an entirely different situation, responding to a medical emergency.
I have enormous admiration for her, not simply because of what she did, but because I recognise that instinct. It is a familiar reflex I know well, and I have seen in many doctors. Something I suspect develops over years of looking after patients. It is as though, regardless of where we are or what we are doing, a switch is flicked when someone becomes unwell. Everything else temporarily takes a back seat. We stop being runners, parents, friends or guests at a social gathering and become doctors. The training, experience and responsibility take over.
Medicine is unusual in that it is difficult to leave completely behind at the end of a working day. Most professions allow us to close the office door, switch off the computer and return home with some degree of separation between work and personal life. For doctors, that separation is not always so straightforward. We may be at a dinner, a family gathering, on holiday, at the supermarket or, as in my friend’s case, halfway through a run, when someone suddenly needs medical assistance.
There is, of course, a professional and ethical responsibility to care for patients, particularly in emergencies. Doctors have a duty to care and are trained to recognise illness, assess risk and act when time matters. Our professional duty does not mean that we are literally expected to be available around the clock or that we should neglect our own wellbeing and families. But there is an important distinction between being officially on call and feeling that you can never quite turn off the instinct to help.
I think this sense of responsibility deepens with experience. When you have spent years caring for people who are frightened, critically ill or facing life-threatening diagnoses, you develop a particular sensitivity to suffering. You become acutely aware that what may be an ordinary day for you could be the most frightening day of someone else’s life.
And the responsibility often extends well beyond the initial intervention. Many doctors will find it difficult simply to offer some immediate assistance and then walk away. We want to know what happened next. Was an ambulance called? Did the patient reach hospital? Were they assessed appropriately? Did they receive the treatment they needed? Even when we are no longer directly responsible for the patient, there is often a genuine desire to follow the situation through to a safe conclusion. We care about the outcome, sometimes long after our immediate involvement has ended.
I have often thought that this is one of the least visible aspects of being a doctor. People see the consultations, operations, ward rounds and hospital appointments, but they do not always see the emotional investment that accompanies them. They do not necessarily see the doctor who worries about a patient after leaving the hospital, makes an additional telephone call, checks on a result or wonders whether someone has received the care they need. These are not always formal obligations. They are simply expressions of genuine and inherent concern.
Of course, doctors are not superhuman. We have families who need us, children who want our attention, personal commitments and, importantly, our own physical and emotional needs. Actually, my friend could easily have justified continuing her run and leaving the situation to someone else. But being a doctor makes it very difficult to ignore a person in need when you know you may be able to help.
In fact, she and I have also spoken many times about another side of being doctors and mothers. We both have young families, and we understand the difficult balancing act of wanting to be present for our children while remaining deeply committed to a profession that demands so much of us. Medicine does not stand still, and keeping up to date, remaining knowledgeable, attending meetings, reading, and ensuring that we continue to offer our patients the best possible care all take considerable time.
There are times when we feel guilty about the hours our profession takes us away from our families, and perhaps even feel a little guilty about how much we enjoy our work. There is something quite complicated about loving what you do, finding it intellectually stimulating and personally rewarding, yet knowing that every additional hour spent pursuing that passion is an hour not spent with your family.
I suspect many working mothers, particularly those in demanding professions, will recognise this feeling. We are constantly trying to get the balance right, sometimes succeeding and sometimes feeling that we have fallen short on one side or the other. But what we need to remind ourselves is that being dedicated to our profession and loving our families are not competing measures of how much we care. Both can coexist, even if finding that balance is not always easy.
Ultimately, I am immensely proud of my friend. Her actions are a reminder that the best of medicine sometimes happens unexpectedly, in the middle of an ordinary day, when someone who has taken a little time for herself, instinctively puts another person’s life first.
