Michael Attas, guest column: Unsung heroes of medicine
MICHAEL ATTAS Guest column
She is a middle-aged, minority woman with a bad heart and a defibrillator. She has one child in college and two in high school and is a single, working mother. She leaves the house after getting the kids fed and ready for school and is at work by 7:30 a.m. daily.
After she gets off from work at 4 p.m., she comes home, makes sure her kids are focused on their studies, prepares dinner, then goes to her second job at 7 p.m. and finally is done working at 2 a.m.
She does this routine six days a week. She always has the biggest smile and never misses a day of work — unless she is hospitalized.
She is my hero.
And there are many just like her — brave people who transcend their illnesses and diseases to live full, productive and happy lives.
Culture tells us that the heroes are the scientists, the physicians, and the healers. My experience tells me otherwise.
Welby Syndrome
There is a peculiar phenomenon in medicine that I term the “Marcus Welby Syndrome,” after the famous TV doctor of the 1970s.
It is a widespread condition, often unrecognized, misdiagnosed and never treated adequately. And it is a dire condition with fatal results.
Marcus Welby was the first TV medical series that I remember. The character was a kind, loving, fatherly figure sort of physician. He never made the wrong diagnosis or a mistake. He was compassionate, and his patients loved him dearly.
And he has been the template for modern television and media representation of doctors as heroes. This representation could not be more wrong.
From a historical perspective, during the Enlightenment and the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, science began to be seen as a certainty to unlock the mysteries of the universe. It began to see itself as heroic — the answer to the problems that had befallen humanity for millennia.
The underlying motif was that it is simply a question of time before we solve all of our problems with scientific knowledge. Eradication of disease and even death is only a matter of time.
And the doctor as “hero” became the embodiment of that motif. Our whole society has bought into the cultural assumption that medicine and its practitioners can cure all ills, deliver perfect health care, and we will all be healthier and happier forever.
In part, it has led to an unrealistic set of expectations in medicine — and the explosion of malpractice suits, the demands for perfection in the world of mysteries, and an unwillingness to acknowledge our human frailty. It is an unhealthy situation.
Strength and grace
By contrast, every doctor has stories of patients as heroes.
I am astounded by how much strength and grace can flow in lives that are broken by societal standards. Yet the resilience of the human spirit is something we often miss or even take for granted.
I see so much bravery and courage in ordinary lives. We seem to think that the heroes are often the ones who are the loudest or who get the most press.
It seems to me that true heroes are those who live their lives with daily courage, quiet dignity, and the grace and knowledge that they are in the hands of a divine presence that is ultimately in charge.
Life may have not always dealt with them fairly or evenhandedly. Yet they go on about their daily lives without missing a beat. They are the quiet, unsung heroes of medicine. Strong and wise, they have so much to teach us.
We are the recipients of their profound courage daily.
Michael Attas is a local doctor, a medical humanities professor and an Episcopal priest. E-mail him at Michael_Attas@baylor.edu.
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