Health Care Career choices- Take them seriously

This is an excerpt from a book I am writing. Maybe one day it will be published.  I would be grateful for your thoughts.         Dr.Phillip Silverstein

This was a momentous day for me, a third year medical student at State University of New York at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse N.Y.

Today I would actually begin clinical medicine, “rounds “in the hospital.  I would don the sacred white coat upon my body and adorn myself with symbol of success- the stethoscope.  After two long years of cell biology Physiology, pharmacology, and every other  “ology”  you could imagine I was ready for the real stuff . My  first rotation- pediatrics.

In the hospital I was part of an entourage of two dozen ducklings seeking seeds of wisdom from the mouth of our mother duck, respectfully known as the “attending.”  He would stop in front of a patients room often for an hour discussing the significance of  mouth ulcerations and a particular skin rash and surprise us with the a diagnosis of Kawasaki syndrome.

It should be no surprise that rounds could last up to six hours.  About half way through the morning I unintentionally looked into a room that was not on our list. In fact our attending was discussing a case in the room just beyond where my attentions lay.

The discourse of my attending slowly faded as I peered into this room which was filled with  light and color, like a Monet painting.

A young girl of about three years old was sitting on her bed as incoming light from a window to her left reflected off her hair. With her every move sunlight seemed to dance playfully, skipping upon her short straight blond hair.

The child was staring intently at a picture book, as a woman next to her moved her lips. I presumed her to be her mother reading her child a story. The child would intermittently take the book from her mothers’ hand pointing at a character in it. It was at this moment that her mother smiled with great exuberance. A moment passed and mother’s lips moved again. This time the child, opened her mouth to receive a teaspoon of vanilla ice cream. As the child glanced toward me she revealed her soft blue eyes, as blue as Caribbean waters. My heart was already breaking  “God I thought, she is adorable.” I hope it’s not serious.”

Our entourage continued making rounds until it was time for lunch. The Varsity restaurant was the place the medical  students met the coeds of Syracuse University. It was here we collected phone numbers and got as many dates lined up  as possible. I went to lunch and completely forgot  my experience with the young child.

Three weeks later, on an overcast day, I had been to a special lecture in the basement of the hospital, a section of the hospital “off limits “to the public.   As I was leaving this area walking toward the exit out to the street, I perceived in my peripheral vision “something blond.”  Immediately a pressure gripped my chest.  When I noticed that I had just passed the morgue the pressure in my chest increased, my heart now pounding fast , my stomach in knots. “Please G-d,”  I thought.  ” Don’t  let it be!”

The morgue had two heavy steel doors that swung open, each door with a square window only about the size of a serving tray at eye level.  I looked slowly through the windows.

Her little body, yellow- white, lay on a steel table three times her size. Her blond hair still as blond and bright as three week’s ago only this time there was no sunlight playing upon it. I left quickly.

I was ashamed of myself as I went home throwing my white coat on a chair.  I sat down and wept.It took me weeks to process what had just happened. This was to be my first realization of the seriousness of this chosen field. I wasn’t some cool dude, but here to be intimate with life and death. I wondered if I was cut out for this. I kept thinking about the child’s mother.  Did her mother know this was going to happen to her? If so what was going on in her mind as she was serving her child ice cream. I was sick with grief and all I could think of was how unfair life seemed to be.