“Why do you want to be a doctor?” asked the medical school interviewer. I gave what must be the common answer: “I want to help people. I want to be of service, and I like the intellectual challenge of solving a problem.”
Fifteen or so years later, I was burned out. Four years of medical school, three of residency, two of specialty training; 100+ hours of work per week, on-call every 2-3 nights, too little sleep, too many insurance forms and so much more had erased the lofty desires I expressed in that interview. Its now well recognized that the joy of medicine is scrubbed out by those nine or more years of intensive training, The daily anxiety of getting everything right in the office, the hospital, and the Intensive Care Unit continues to make one forget the original reason for it all.
I had been volunteering to organize and share in the work of the First Aid service for Gathering attenders for a few years; I had seen a gradual reduction in physician and nurse volunteers until the year when I was the lone volunteer to provide all the daily medical support for Gathering attenders. That was the year that this made me frustrated & resentful; this wasn’t what I had volunteered for!
Have you heard of the Quaker term “broken open”? Yes, that is what happened to me. The Still Small Voice reminded me of those words to the interviewer, that I was called to serve and to service as a physician, and I would find joy in answering that call. No longer was my volunteer service at Gathering a burden! No longer were office hours to be a drudgery, returning to the hospital in the middle of the night was no longer a burden, and listening deeply to the cares of my patients was now gift, like it had been on my first clinical rotation as a medical student.
Thirty years of Friends General Conference’s Gatherings for me now. One Gathering changed my life in ways I could not have foreseen. My Calling spoke to my condition, and my condition spoke to my Calling.
Might Gathering change your life, as it has for so many? Come to the 2024 Gathering and find out! I hope to see you there, June 30-July 6 at Haverford College, just outside Philadelphia.
Frank Barch
Schuylkill Monthly Meeting
