SPEAR ESSAY
counterpart, we forego the basic needs of our bodies regularly for
years in ways hypocritical to our profession. Relationally, we are
noticeably absent from our families’ and friends’ lives and often-
times the undeserved recipients of the scrutiny, assumptions and
judgment of our field by both acquaintances and strangers alike.
Most piercing of all by far, in our own life stories, we may sacri-
fice a little too much of ourselves along the way during the arduous,
sometimes confusing journey, finding ourselves a bit lost in the
sea of good works and altruism. For life neither takes pause for
a doctorate nor for us. As such, the cruelties therein neither pass
over us nor wait for us. Yet we are called to carry on for the good of
individuals and the greater good, burdens we are not always capable
of bearing. Perhaps then, we think, if we persevere, we can be a part
of new joys, new miracles, that soften the stings of old pains, those
of our own and others.
Whichever way we started on this journey, however our stories
may have diverged and traversed, our ends are so similar aren’t they?
The essence of my day as a physician may be so similar to any others
wherever in the world. The most important question really then is,
whatever were the sacrifices for? The reasons we started are likely
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not the reasons we continued onward. As the years go on, have we
properly remembered and revered the losses and gains along the
way and how do we see them? Becoming a physician is a milestone
in a life just begun. It is the life beyond, when the stakes are higher,
the days and nights longer, the fears deeper and the gut sicker, when
our mettle is truly tested. Those days are graciously reprieved by the
blessed ordinary that sustains moments of brief extra-ordinariness.
It is quite simply a difficult thing to live with not only the sor-
rows but the sacrifices of others as well as our own in this field. It
is perhaps one of the reasons this has been a venerated profession.
Then there comes a moment, when our sacrifices, even though
seemingly countless, may be used to serve others whose losses are
even greater than our own. That the portion which was debited
from my ledger could be credited to someone else is the joy that
finally ends my day. From open eye to shut eye, I am awakened to
lives other than my own. There is no sacrifice too great for that.
Smitha Bullock, MD, MBA, is an Assistant Professor at the University
of Louisville Division of Pediatric Cardiology.
This article was an entry in the 2018 Richard Spear, MD, Memorial
Essay Contest.
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