Medicine takes over EVERYTHING...

Being part of the medical world doesn’t just include your work life but also causes an outward ripple that also affects your personal life. You may start off thinking you have it all under control but pretty soon, the boundaries begin to blur and your work and professional lives begin to merge into one big mess... sometimes with horrible consequences as I’ve seen for some people.

Don’t get me wrong – being involved in medicine (whether as a doctor, nurse, clinical scientist/researcher or any other profession allied to medicine) is rewarding. As medical students we’ve been chosen out of many thousands of applicants to pursue these careers; it is a privilege and we should appreciate it. In accepting our places, it is no longer just a case of getting good grades as there are many more things that need to be considered. We agreed to be put in positions of trust, to improve other people’s quality of life, the responsibility to humanity – all in all a great honour. So yes it is rewarding and I am appreciative... but at the same time it can sometimes be very stressful. Often patients don’t consent to procedures or treatments as they may be nervous or scared and so it sometimes falls to the med students/doctors to be cruel to be kind. It’s funny how repeating a common procedure can still make you feel like a newbie each time. Sometimes it’s not even the clinical setting that is the cause for concern; it’s your personal life. You find yourself reading science journals as opposed to general newspapers or gossip magazines in your spare time, you correct people by providing scientific explanations, you link certain occurrences back to science in a general conversation between friends and the list goes on.

Joking aside though I recently I found myself getting so caught up in my clinical project that it started to take over my whole life. Eventually my project supervisor had to pull me aside and told me to “take some time out and relax.” She told me that as fantastic as it was that I was so dedicated to my work, I should actually take the time to just switch off and live my own life. When this was relayed back to a PhD student I was working with, it led to certain clashes. The student felt that I should spend as much time at the hospital as possible as this is what he/she had done during their clinical training and they felt that every student after them should do the same too. My supervisor (who had also put in long hours during their clinical training) felt that I should pace myself otherwise I would ‘burn out’ and that wouldn’t be useful to anyone. So the difference in opinions which got me thinking - residents and F1’s have set work limits but do medical students? If you don’t put as many hours in as your fellow colleagues does that indicate that you aren’t as committed? Conversely if you’re working as many hours as you possibly can does that mean you don’t know when to stop and have no clue as to how to obtain a healthy work/life balance?

I’m pleased to say that after a few hiccups, I eventually found my own style of working that seemed to satisfy everyone involved (I think) and didn’t send me over the edge. But this incident was useful as it showed me how work can take over your life without you even realising what has gone on. I think balance is very important. As well as gaining new knowledge and meeting interesting people, it’s important not to get trapped by work. As well as being part of the medical world, you’re still a part of general society just like the people you treat and so you should take the time to break off and relax rather than be blinded by work.