Heartless

About 100 days into my internship in the national hospital (also known as 100 days of being a glorified aliping sagigilid or scut monkey), I was ready for a break.  I noticed that I was becoming less compassionate towards patients and their bantays, and such greatly bothered me because I'm usually the person who would find any and every way to make sure that a patient got a radiologic procedure, labs, or medications.  Helping the really needy is a noble job, however, the health care situation here is far from ideal, so things become draining and feel futile after a while.  I guess that truth finally sunk in and has me all but scrambling to get back into the slightly more civilized world of private practice.

I guess it was encountering a certain subset of patients on a daily basis that had me figuratively throwing my hands up in defeat and saying "fuck all this."  Ever heard of the phrase "mahirap tumulong sa mahirap?"  I particularly am bothered by patients (and bantays) who come in and demand top notch care (and whatnot), yet refuse to move a muscle when the time comes to do their part.  We need them to register, go to social services, submit labs, get radiologic requests approved, buy the medications or needs, while we doctors tend to the patient's most immediate needs; some of these bantays are content to watch or want us to do those things mentioned, which is unfair and impossible because we're tending to a good number of other patients who need urgent care as well.  I particularly loathe those people who are exceptionally rude and feel so entitled.  There are times I want to scream at them, "you're not even paying your taxes!"  I guess being constantly exposed to the harsh urban life bestows a certain mean (cue in Taylor Swift now) attitude on them, that they can't help being that way, much to their detriment and our dismay.  In the beginning, I tried to reason with this people in the sweetest possible way, but repeated "fail" moments have me abandoning the attempt.  I'm not ashamed to say that there were times I had to raise my voice and put on a mega-frowny face to get things moving.

Gah, being a doctor is such a thankless job.  I don't want the negativity from this people to influence my life but I think I'm beginning to turn into a heartless automaton bee-yotch.