"Playing Dress Up" by MSIH First Year blogger Ayal Levi


 
Last week was Purim in Israel. I won’t dive into a Talmudic parsing of what Purim is (we do have Google for a reason) but suffice to say everywhere I looked, there were costumes. Little wizards, firemen, animals, and assorted superheroes. Regardless of your religion, ethnicity, or cultural background, the sight of people, young and old, going about their day decked out in costume should bring a smile to your face. It certainly did on mine. As I walked across the hospital campus to a morning “hands-on” class on the internal medicine ward, I saw a young girl, dressed in a lab coat. Upon closer inspection, I saw a stethoscope around her neck, and those ubiquitous off-grey surgical scrubs that are found in hospitals the world over. There was no doubt what this young lady, who couldn’t have been older than 8, was dressed as. A doctor. Out of all the possible costumes a child can choose, this palpably excited little girl had chosen to dress as a member of the medical community. I couldn’t help but smile, and giggle a bit to myself.

The sight of this young lady gave me pause. Out of all the things a child can dress as, this one chose a doctor.

Medical school is work. It’s easy to get lost in text books, tests, and trying to remember which antibiotic is contraindicated when taking warfarin (a bunch of them, apparently). Easy to feel sorry for myself, and find myself staring out the window at the beautiful sun, and wonder how it would feel beating down on my face on a calming desert hike. Or perhaps bike ride.

Yes, this is not an easy process. Nor should it be. For this little girl, a doctor isa superhero. A doctor is something to aspire to, something to dream about, something to dress up as.

Here we are, pursuing that dream. Each in our own way. Each with our own challenges. The essence of it; the struggle to strive to become care-givers. The road is bumpy. It is laden with distractions, illusions, questions, and yes, even despair. Yet, how we experience this, how we decide to experience this, is up to us. How we approach each misstep, wrong answer, poor grade and loss of confidence will define us as doctors.

This little girl has an ideal of who and what a doctor can be, and more so, shouldbe. Perhaps that ideal is an impossibility, perhaps not. There is only one way to find out though, and that’s by pursuing it, with all we have.

That, and adopting the landlord’s dog. They do make great study partners.


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