i'm 26. started med school at 18, finished at 24 (the usual.) in our system we don't “match” into “residencies”, we all spend 2 years working as interns/junior doctors at teaching hospitals rotating through different specialties so we end up (hopefully…?) as competent general practitioner. then a year of community service, usually working somewhere p terrible, until you are semi-free of the dept of health and can start hunting for a job. “hunting? but doctors can always get jobs!” yeah, but most of the jobs you take are so fucking unbelievably inhumane that you would rather die than take them. idk. some of us have limits.
so. my week, on average. days are officially 8-4, realistically more like 7-5 and don't you dare complain. 2x or more a week you're “on call”, ie. working 24 hours, after hours you're alone, if you try and call for help you'll get screamed at. the 24 hours is realistically usually more like 30ish hours and don't you dare complain. you work most weekends in a month because your seniors don't want to. so you're perpetually exhausted and dehydrated and malnourished. on those calls i've cried more than once around 2am because every bone of your body is screaming at you to go sleep. but no, in that state of mind, when i haven't slept or eaten or barely sat down, that's when i have to go run a resus or make some hectic decision that i am underqualified to make because my senior won't answer the phone or deliver a goddamn baby or something. because clearly the patients' safety and wellbeing isn't as important as some rich fucking politician skimming off the department of health's budget so we can't hire more doctors.
and the abuse. man. every day, every fucking day you're getting verbally abused, by senior doctors most of all, by senior nurses who've been bullied by doctors and want to take it out on you, by patients (i forgive them, being sick is difficult.) i've had registrars walk into a room and ltierally physically grab the nearest intern and start screaming in their face about something that has nothing to do with them. i've been sworn at and demeaned and singled out and mocked and put down and made to actually feel like i don't deserve to be there (not in the hospital. the planet.) try to stand up for the students when the consultant is verbally abusing them on a ward round and making them cry? try to stand up for yourself when the senior nurse is literally refusing to help you despite a patient needing urgent care because she “doesn't like how loudly you walk” (yeah…idk)? try to bring to someone's attention that your registrar is saying sexually inappropriate things? you're immediately told that if you can't HANDLE being a doctor, you shouldn't BE a doctor. you need to toughen up. you need to just accept THIS IS HOW IT IS. you didn't manage to get these 5000 things done on your night shift when you were alone and a child needed to be resuscitated? clearly YOU JUST DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PATIENTS. you young doctors are so whiny and spoiled. WE had it hard. so now YOU'RE going to suffer.
that's not even mentioning the blatant racism and sexual harassment you're faced with all the damn time (yay! south africa!) that's not mentioning the fucking soul crushing work of watching people suffer and die LITERALLY BECAUSE THEY ARE POOR. i don't want to go into it or i'll start ranting. but i have witnessed so so so so so so so many terrible things happen quite literally as a consequence of the crushing poverty and immense inequality of this country. and everyone's so desensitized i feel like doctors don't even see poor people as people. “like oh, yeah, what do you expect?” like WTF. people are just numbers, bodies, inconveniences. i've seen doctors scream in patient's faces, say unbelievably hurtful and cruel things to them, even physically hurt them by being rough and screwing up analgesia. it just makes me want to scream and cry man. like idk. i became a doctor because i want to help people. but i don't think that's actually what we do.
i've been suicidal since early this year. psychiatrist was begging me to get admitted. i kept working for another 2 months because i knew we were already understaffed and i didn't want to fuck up the call roster for everyone. now i'm burnt out to the shell of a human being, i'm on disability leave, and the thought of going back to work makes me scream. and the worst part is i know that at work, i will be seen as “weak”/”lazy”/”being dramatic.” you literally are expected to sacrifice your whole life to this job or you're not “serious” about medicine. like medicine has to be your whole identity. i've seen colleagues get shit on for like taking time off to visit sick family members or attend their kids' weddings. like the hospital owns you, you don't exist outside of it, and if you do then you're betraying your patients somehow.
i refuse. i refuse to think like this. i refuse to let myself be crushed by this system. i spit on fame, glory, my name up in lights. i want my patients to be well. and i want to be well, too.