Fear

One of my professors asked us to write a short reflection on what our biggest fear was about becoming a physician. Just for grins, I decided to post it.

Fear Essay


While sorting through my mental database of fears about being a doctor, I am finding it difficult to select just one, most prominent fear. Possibly that I’m too old for this? That I wasted all of my “young” years enduring pre-med classes, the MCAT, post-bacc, and the emotional roller coaster of applying more than once to medical school? That I’m so heavily immersed in educational debt that I’ve inadvertently tied myself down while paradoxically trying to do the exact opposite? Or perhaps that regardless of how much I love medicine, I will later find out that I missed my true calling as a UFO-ologist or a flying trapeze artist? No, I’m pretty sure it’s not one of these.

Truthfully, most of these fears are just little bubbles in a blue sea of overwhelming happiness, gratitude, and excitement that I feel whenever I take a moment to verify that I’m actually in med school and I’m going to be a doctor. Being a “pre-med” and stressing about “if I’ll ever make it” has been such an integral part of my identity for so long that I have to continuously remind myself that I’m here. And cliché as it may seem, every morning I am so thankful to simply sit in class and finally learn material that I love that I can barely contain myself. I always knew that if I could just get there, I would be the happiest medical student in the world. And I am.

As a result of this blissful happiness, I really haven’t made much time to focus on the fears that I have about becoming a physician. Imminent fears about medical school are abundant (passing my classes, socializing with much younger students, adjusting to my limited income, and securing a residency)… but my fears about actually being a physician are pretty limited. I believe that I have the resourcefulness, the curiosity, the character, the people skills, the tenacity, the decisiveness, and the intellect to be an excellent physician. I think I’ll be able to handle death, telling patients dismal news, long hours, hospital politics, tough ethical decisions, yada yada.

I suppose my biggest fear revolves around the order of my priorities, and how they may change in the next 10 years. I am, and always have been, a woman that defines success differently than most women I know. Many of my girlfriends would say that success and happiness for them involves being in love, having children and a wonderful family, being financially secure, and having a beautiful home. Of course they also place emphasis on their education, career goals, and hobbies… but if forced to choose they would certainly sacrifice portions of the latter for the former. These women I speak of are not uneducated women, nor are they simply housewives… but they derive happiness from achieving their goals of falling in love and having a family.

If I could draw a picture of what I hope my life is like in 10 or 20 years, I think it would look very different. Happiness for me is being a physician, living in a small home, traveling the world, photography and journalism, enjoying the companionship of friends and family, working on humanitarian missions, learning languages, having a peaceful and harmonic life, meditating, having a garden, living in a multitude of cities, etc. Of course love is important as are children, but to me these have never been priorities. I appreciate love when it comes my way, and companionship is wonderful, but I would not be willing to sacrifice the other things that make me happy. I’m over 30 and I don’t particularly want children. I have a wonderful long-term boyfriend, and I still don’t see myself as a mother or a wife.

My fear is that my priorities are screwed up… and by the time they change (if they do at all) it will be too late or not possible. If I suddenly decide that I want children, I may be too heavily invested in my career to switch to motherhood. Or perhaps the desire doesn’t manifest for another 12 years… and by then it may not be possible at all considering my age. I know that I’ll love being a physician, but I don’t know if I will love balancing a career as a physician with being a mother. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to handle the demands of both roles.

I have many friends who are parents as well as professionals, and observing the chaos in their lives only reinforces my feelings and validates my fears. Every woman physician I know who has children falls into one of two categories 1) They have a very hard time balancing their career with motherhood without help, and they usually end up feeling huge amounts of guilt for spending so much time away from their children or 2) They didn’t even want children to begin with, but did it because it is society’s measure of success. When I examine their relationships with their children, it doesn’t seem like anything I envy or would want for myself.

Over recent years I have certainly thought about this issue quite a bit, and my conclusion is that there is nothing I can do to address the issue except to simply not worry about it and let life unfold as it will. Maybe one day my biological clock will click, and having children will be worth all the chaos. Whether I’m young, in a relationship, adopting a child, freezing embryos, a single mom, 35 or 65, I assume that if and when I’m faced with these decisions I’ll make the choice correct for me, and until then… che sera, sera.