Why Medicine Draws Me In
This one’s not easy. Some memoir topics come quick—this one’s been rattling around in my head for weeks. Why medicine? Why do I stick with it, even collect it, even in my so-called “off hours”? I don’t have a tidy answer. What I do have is curiosity that won’t shut up, and a tendency to lean toward the morbid.
For some folks, medicine is boring. Charts, labs, the same old same old. For me it’s never been that. It’s the why. Why does this happen? Why does this drug heal while that one kills? Why does one patient get better and the next one doesn’t? I can’t let go of that question. It’s what pulled me in and it’s what keeps me hanging around.
But I’ll admit it—I’ve always leaned toward the darker corners. Forensics, pathology, poisons, ugly disease states. That stuff grabs me more than nephrology or endocrinology ever will. I know my weak spots too. Ophthalmology’s all physics and light refraction—I’m lost there. Hem/onc is a forest of pathways and studies. Nephrology? Too much chemistry, too many electrolytes shifting around. Neurology? You can diagnose a degenerative condition all day long but at the end of the day, there’s not much you can offer.
What I do enjoy? Family medicine fits me—because I get to just sit across from people and talk. No hierarchy, no “doctor voice.” Just people. I like procedures too—sewing somebody up, cutting out a lesion, stuff you can actually fix. Emergency medicine I loved for years—the speed, the chaos, the detective work. But the abuse of the system wears you down. Two in the morning, somebody with a cough they’ve had for a week—that’ll make you burn out quick.
So why medicine? Because I can’t stop asking why. That’s the long and short of it. And when I’m not in the clinic, I’m still circling the same obsession by collecting medical history. Bottles, drugs, instruments, books, old prescriptions, advertising. The weirder, the better.
It’s all the same itch. Whether I’m treating a patient or holding a century-old poison bottle, I’m still chasing the same thing: why?