WHEN I GROW UP | Layla Joudeh
When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor. Now I’m not so little, I’d say medium, and I’m a doctor. Well barely. I’ve been a doctor for two years.
When I was little, I wanted to help people. Now I’m medium, not big yet, and I still want to help people.
Now that I’m medium, not big yet, I’m trying. Really trying to be a doctor that helps people.
I sit through sign out, with my colleagues—ranging from little to big—and we are all figuring out how to help people.
Sometimes it’s easy, the patients who come in, have a baby, then leave. I barely do anything except provide the hands to help catch the baby. Of course no one wants their baby to fall, but even if I am not there, the patient, the baby, would be okay. I provide the guidance, the encouragement, the countdown from 10 while they push. But the patient already has all they need in them. The patients ("our patients" we say sometimes to make us believe we provided them what they need—like they are ours until we give them away at the end of their hospital stay) just need a little reminder. Anyways the patients are always capable. They aren’t ours—they belong to themselves, their newborns, their families.
Sometimes helping patients is much harder. Sometimes the patients need to be in the hospital because the hospital has what they need. They need to be monitored. They need medicine. They need fluids. They need hands—the caring hands of the nurse, of the doctor, of the surgeon. But the patient doesn’t want it. Too many times, the patient has not been helped. They’ve actually been hurt by the monitors, the medicine, the hands— someone’s hands. And we all try, we try to be gentle, we listen, we explain, we wait. And in my head, all these things will help the patient. But the patient (not our patient— definitely not ours this time) doesn’t want it. And eventually we will need to do surgery, and we explain that it’s the best thing but it doesn’t make sense to them. And in my head, I think if they only let us help earlier then we wouldn’t be here in this situation. But maybe it’s not my situation to be in because some person some time ago did something to the patient said something to the patient and I am here witnessing what happens when people are not helped. When they are hurt. And I can’t help this patient. I can witness and she will tell me when she is ready to be helped but she might never be and that’s okay.
Sometimes it is hard for me to help the patient because the patient reminds me of my grandma. She can say good morning but then she needs a translator. No one is there with her. Her kids can only come this weekend because they also work, they also help people. She is frail the patient (our patient). She is dying. I don’t know enough to help. Someone big does but I do not. I press on her abdomen. I hold back tears. I am big enough to know she’s going to die.
Sometimes all I want to do is help the patient because she reminds me of my dear friend. She is pregnant. Barely. The baby will not live if it’s born. But it’s going to be born. All I want to do is sit in her room and make sure she is okay. The baby will be born. I’ll catch the baby. I’ll clean it off and feel for the heart rate and it will not be beating. I’ll give the baby to her (the patient, my patient). She will cry. I will cry.
Then I sit in the airport. Because sometimes I have to leave. I cannot pretend to help people all the time. I cannot try to help people all the time. I cannot think about helping people all the time. I leave my laptop at home so I cannot try to read or learn or figure out how to help people. It’s all very hard sometimes. So I sit at the airport. There’s a mom, with her toddler. They are playing—well walking really. But everything is playing when you’re a toddler. Unless you’re crying. But I am watching the toddler and the mom and they are here together maybe also in the airport so the mom can take a break from helping people. Anyways they are playing. And I think maybe I am helping people.
Maybe when I’m big I’ll figure it all out.
Layla Joudeh is a Syrian-American obstetrician-gynecology resident at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She leans on writing and reading to help her process the ups and downs of her medical career.