This drizzly afternoon, I rushed to the bus loop from class in order to make it to a tour of a local hospital put together by a student-run club at UBC whose mandate is to help students in their process of pursuing a certain health profession.
We were met by two residents (graduated medical school students who have begun practicing in hospitals/clinics) at the lobby of the hospital. Both residents are males in their fourth year of residency — one had a staff identification badge hang down his t-shirt whereas the other had a stethoscope around his neck and was dressed in a neatly pressed dress shirt. Let’s call the former Jeff and the latter Ken.
In the past year and a half, after hurdles and hurdles of career choice challenges and changes, I developed an interest in becoming a doctor. There are various reasons why I think may be a suitable career choice for me (without thinking about my uncertainty of my capabilities in the natural and physical sciences for now). Amongst the passion of directly help people, the excitement for science, the ability to earn a living wage, and the respect, a big draw for me was the autonomy I perceived that a career in medicine would entail. To put it into picture, I have been (day)dreaming about how nice it would be to be a family physician/GP and be able to focus my time, attention, and efforts on helping patients without having to worry too much about living up to the expectations of supervisors, following bureaucratic rules, and navigating professional relationships with co-workers.
Hearing from the residents today made me feel a little grey as while Jeff was showing us around and telling us about his experiences in medical school and being a resident at the hospital, these words he spoke jumped at me:
- protocol
- procedures
- divided
- paperwork
- culture
- process
- system
- adaptable
- protected time
These are all words that I would say can be related to bureaucracy and more pertaining to your class theme, structure versus agency. Jeff used the word “protocol” when he showed us around the maternal care room. In the maternal care room, there is an apparatus that you use to revive a newborn when he/she stops breathing (please excuse my faulty explanation). When he explained this to us he pointed to the poster on the wall which states the protocol, or what procedures the doctor should follow in such an event. He said to us something along the lines of, “It’s here because you won’t have time to think, they just want you to follow the instructions and just do.”
In my next blog post, I will expand on my thoughts about agency, structure, and the process to a career in a medicine.