The Calling

“When everything else stops, we keep going,” she began.

This woman had always wanted to be a physician, and as a medical school student, was about to become the seventh generation of physicians on her mother’s side of the family.

Her paternal grandmother never had a chance to go to medical school, but even so she found a way to contribute behind the scenes in the medical field.

“I’m not sure why she’s been on my mind so much lately, but she has,” she said. She shared that she had lost a close friend this week who was the same age as her, which reminded her that life does just stop sometimes. This had caused her to contemplate the pressures of medical school and the medical profession—especially the unwieldy expectations on women in the field now.

“Sure, I can be a surgeon and a mom, run three clubs, be head of a board, and start my own research lab. But just because I can do these things doesn’t mean I want to do these things. Parts of my life have to be sacrificed, even now as a med student. All of this comes at a cost,” she said.

Listener Poet Jenny Hegland

Association of American Medical Colleges

September 2020

 

The Calling

The call to be consistent

in an inconsistent world

is resounding, compounding,

deafening for some—

leaving faint, the echoes

of claws on casket, legacies

long gone, reminding we’ve only

recycled the struggles for show.

In medicine, we keep going

when everything else stops—

until the day we don’t. Some

will live another day;

others will take to the clawing

until someone hears their calling.