{"id":15,"date":"2019-11-17T22:01:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T22:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/?p=15"},"modified":"2019-11-17T22:01:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T22:01:53","slug":"been-there-done-that-or-passion-your-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/2019\/11\/17\/been-there-done-that-or-passion-your-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cBeen there, Done that\u201d or Passion \u2013 Your choice."},"content":{"rendered":"

On May 31st<\/sup>, 2018 I walked away from the medical clinic in which I had spent the past 20 years, left the town in which I had spent the last 28 years of my career \u00a0practicing Internal Medicine without a trace of apprehension, only a benign dose of \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I had no thoughts about what medicine I would or would not practice in the future.\u00a0 I was not burnt out, not upset nor anxious. I had only the feeling of just \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d.<\/p>\n

If you had asked me \u201care you passionate about practicing medicine?\u201d\u00a0 I would have answered \u201cprobably not\u201d.\u00a0 If you had asked \u201cwere you once?\u201d\u00a0 I would have thought back to the first ten years of my career in private practice in 1990 and said \u201cyes, I was once\u201d.\u00a0 But again, I would not have felt a need to ask the question to begin with so why answer it?\u00a0 I did spend some time wondering if the choice to be a physician had been a good one. There were various conclusions to varying degrees of certainty.<\/p>\n

But at the age of 63, I have also learned \u201cGod made the world round so that we could not see too far down the path\u201d.\u00a0 That path, the details of which are of no particular importance, lead me to pursue the curriculum through INMED for the DIMPH.\u00a0 The path led me to Baptist Medical Center in Nalerigu, Ghana.\u00a0 When it comes to what I thought was a medical career, I could have said \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d.\u00a0 But I have never done anything like this.\u00a0 This is medicine, and this kind of medicine requires passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not in Kansas anymore\u201d, are the famous word of Dorothy to her dog Toto in the movie \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d.\u00a0 Much were my thoughts in the first few days at BMC.\u00a0 The demand for medical care in both volume and severity are profound.\u00a0 The resources for lab and diagnostic technology extremely limited, close to non-existent.\u00a0\u00a0 You cannot cover up a lack of diagnostic and therapeutic skill by ordering a bunch of lab and x-ray test to \u201cmake sure you did not miss anything\u201d.\u00a0 The only thing standing between you and a bad patient outcome is you the clinician, in that regard quite naked and alone.\u00a0 The volume is huge.\u00a0 Not only do you have to be good, he have to fast and efficient.\u00a0 No AC to keep you refreshed.\u00a0 No breaks for a coke and a doughnut. Just dim light bulb in a room large enough to be my bedroom closet and a noisy ceiling fan against the heat and humidity.\u00a0 Bottled water against dehydration.\u00a0 And hunger, I have already lost 5 pounds in two weeks. Typical day \u2013 7 cases of malaria two of which two were severe.\u00a0 One intrauterine demise, to an internist, that is an unusual day. One critical aortic stenosis in an 8 year old, previously undiagnosed and multi-lobar pneumonia presenting in shock.\u00a0\u00a0 Then you can drop by maternity and help with three vaginal births and start treatment for two with pre-eclampsia.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Remember, I am an internist, so this is really challenging.<\/p>\n

At the end of each day I am either exhausted or nearly so, but my wife is here, beautiful and loving.\u00a0 The local cook is great.\u00a0 My emotions are recharged. My body refueled and ready to be rested. And I have passion again.\u00a0 It is required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On May 31st, 2018 I walked away from the medical clinic in which I had spent the past 20 years, left the town in which I had spent the last 28 years of my career \u00a0practicing Internal Medicine without a trace of apprehension, only a benign dose of \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I had no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/burtonadrian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}