do i make you proud

So tell me, the chief of medicine here in the US asked me a year ago, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I told him cardiology. I told him the moment i understood the EKG, i knew i was for cardiology.
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Amazing. It really is creutzfeldt jakob. One in a million is the incidence and i nailed the diagnosis. It was exhilirating. The infectious disease group was impressed.
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Where is that girl? The ICU head asked. He was looking for me. Yes where is louise? Asked the Infectious disease doctor. She ordered for this test, she beat me into ordering this test. Yes, the ICU attending said, apparently she got hold of some valuable information about the living conditions of this patient and she gave me a three page report on why she ordered for this test. We might as well go with her hunch.

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You think you are house huh?

My colleague laughed and looked at me. I have never seen anyone so obsessed about getting the diagnosis. I think you are this close to visiting the patient's house and investigating the scene of the crime. I laughed. If push comes to shove, yes i will do that.
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I cringed while the pathologist performed an autopsy on my patient. A moment ago he was breathing and now, for my viewing purposes, i could literally see a person from the inside out. His heart i held in my hand. I tried hard to dissociate myself from the event. This is the same heart i tried hard to save. Epinephrine. Shock this patient to 200 joules. Everybody clear. This is the same lungs i tried to give breath to. And now i am holding them, poking on them. Trying to look for the spirit of my patient and yet only having innards to remind me. To a time when i told him i would try my best to save him.

I tried sir. I tried. It still haunts me. The sight of blood gushing out of his body. The stench of alcohol and the wretched aroma of me feeling like i failed. I gave it my best, but i guess Hades won this battle.

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My knees hurt. I told them it's your weight. Could you give me something for it? Try to lose weight and stop eating a lot. I can't do that, could you give me a pill instead?

Please my son is a nice person. He is a heroin addict who overdosed on methadone and antianxiety drugs and he has no life skills but he is a nice person. I'm worried about him, could you take care of him? I bit my tongue. I wanted to say, oh you want me to undo what twenty two years of bad parenting in one week of hospital stay?

***&%! I swear, some of these people are impossible. A lot of them think the outside world owes them something , that all they need is a pill and they will be better, that eating would solve their problems, that disability and lawsuits are the answer to getting rich.
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What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be a doctor.

I want to be a doctor to people who needs my help.

I want to be a healer to people who are really sick.

I want to reach out to people who have known nothing but hardship. Whose thank yous mean thank you. Who doesn't have the insurance to pay for my services but will take my hand and give it a warm squeeze as payment.

I want to be the doctor who goes out to the underserved, the poor just because.

No i no longer aspire to be a cardiologist.

I will not be needed in that field. Too many people there to give that care, but so few doctors to the people unfortunate enough to start the dying process the moment they were born.

I want to encounter hippocrates one day and hear him say, you are a doctor.

I want to encounter Big J one day and hear him say, well done daughter.

I want to see his face and say, have you been running long?