[This is the second post in a series on becoming a Christian physician. The series began with Do You Want to Be a Doctor?]
“Why do you want to work in healthcare?”
“I want to help people.”
This dialogue is the most common conversation people will have about a career in medicine. The way we think about healthcare professionals tends towards the poignant and provocative: heroic paramedics and EMTs in ambulances, austere physicians and pharmacists and lab researchers in crisp white coats, dutiful and deeply compassionate nurses in a hospital ward, charming and encouraging therapists in the office. By and large, these images are positive ones of trust, care, and goodness.
These perspectives have a special resonance with the current generation because they reflect genuine and people-oriented views in an otherwise superficial and increasingly disconnected society. Today’s aspiring professionals are idealists, but many of them are also suspicious of systems, corporations, and financial interests. The rising workforce is relational and post-modern, seeking out “authentic” experiences and friendships grounded in elements that reflect something valuable, tangible, and indisputably good. It is therefore logical to prize healthcare highly as a career, for what experiences can be more raw, positively-minded, and relationally-oriented than the alleviation of suffering, the curing of illness, and the postponement of death? [Read more…] about Helping People Is Not Enough