It’s 1998, or thereabouts. October and the air is chilly, heavy with woodsmoke escaping the cold stone houses of the Circulade, alive with excitement. My sister and I crouch in the little wooden cabin atop a child’s slide, chuntering happily to each other, as we squash lavender between grubby fingers and press the smooth leaves of the Japanese laurel, dark green and yellow specked, onto cuts and bruises. We are doctors.
Later, my hand becomes trapped in the chain of a tyre swing spinning round and round on itself. Drops of blood fall to the ground, instantly dirtied in the dust. The wound is deep, the scar still present. I am aware not of the pain in that first instance, but of the shock of the colour of my blood, mesmerised by how bright it is, how red. Everything darkens as I hear my father’s voice telling me not to faint. He sounds angry, I manage to hold on. I am eight.
I spent a lot of time in my late teens and early twenties consumed with depression at the thought of graduation and the prospect of having to start work. I went to every Careers Fair our university offered, spent hours in the Careers Service, poring over glossy brochures and reading alumni profiles. Office life and corporate identities felt claustrophobic, viscose clothes and 9 to 5s made me shudder. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending a lifetime working on something of no importance, meaningless production and consumerism. I was drawn instinctively to professions with more freedom of expression, but even then was quick to sense their limitations. The only fields that truly appealed seemed financially insecure or impossible to penetrate without good connections. I loathed networking and was already desperately anxious about money.
This was the backdrop to my decision to apply for graduate medicine, although there were a lot of other factors that entered into play. I made a last-minute “nothing to lose” application, with absolutely no relevant work experience and no real sense of what it would entail. Childhood play was long behind me. I had never seriously considered becoming a doctor. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about blood.
A few weeks later, I spent five days shadowing a vascular surgical team – the only clinical experience that I will have before starting my course. I wasn’t particularly taken with amputations and was definitely not persuaded that Dermatology was an attractive career choice after visiting the diabetic foot clinic. But the time I spent with the team House Officer, a doctor just a few months into her first job, excited me. We raced from ward to ward, at first in a blur of unknown surgeons on a hectic round, and then alone, working our way through jobs. This was something I could see myself doing, and enjoying. The fluidity of the working day, the satisfaction of ticking things off a list, the way in which everyone seemed to be either teaching someone or learning from someone else, the contact with so many different fascinating people.
Towards lunchtime, we go to take blood from a patient. Having coped with the gore of an amputation, it doesn’t occur to me that I might struggle, not until I’m aware of the cold sweat on the back of my neck, my vision blurring. For a few seconds I feel a blind panic sweep over me, before the wave recedes. When I’m asked to go in search for gauze, I’m glad for the chance to step away.
I don’t understand what came over me, but I don’t let it put me off. I can’t, I have no better option. And I hang tightly onto the memory of those days when the reality of pre-clinical medicine is almost enough to make me quit.
Writing about work can be hard, but I am drawn to it over and again, because I have not found any other way to make sense of the vast spectrum of everyday life that I witness. It creates space for things that are painful and ugly and hard and sad, which makes them more bearable, if no less real. When I stop writing, I don’t know where to put any of it.
Occasionally I include tales from work in my blog updates. Now that I’m writing more frequently, I plan to post once a month specifically about different aspects of medicine, so if that’s something that interests you, do keep checking back for more.
Catch you next week,
Zx
Mad to Live 