Sacrifice, verb
- to give up or lose something
- to destroy or surrender something for the sake of something else
- to offer something precious to a deity
Last week, I toured a local health center run by a non-profit. They offer healthcare to underserved populations on a sliding scale basis. There are many ways to give, including the monetary donations of the many names that cover the walls to make the mission of greater healthcare access possible. While many at the health center are paid for their service and sacrifice, they are also rewarded with inspiration for the mission.
This week, I also visited a friend in training to be a pediatric surgeon. She completed medical school a couple years ago, and she is now in the second year of her residency. I think of this part of my own training to become a doctor as “on-the-job training” similar to an “apprenticeship.” Medicine is a field of intense and life-long study, but it is also a skill that you can only learn by doing, especially the technically demanding surgical specialties. As a medical or surgical resident, you are paid a “living wage.” You sacrifice income today for the privilege of learning, but also with the promise of a significant salary increase in the future.
In the middle of this grueling training, my friend laments on the difficulty of working 80 hours a week in the hospital, and additional hours studying when sleep is not a priority. She adjusts to the demands that take her time away from her partner and family, especially during holidays filled with family gatherings. “How do I make them understand that I may or may not make it home tomorrow for the family party?” she says mainly to herself. I can see her contemplating the uncertainties of a holiday in the hospital. While there are no scheduled medical services on the holiday weekend schedule, medicine is full of emergencies. When the regular work shift is done, she is “on call” for emergencies. Will she have to spend the holiday in the operating room? or dealing with sick patients on the wards? or tied up in phone calls even while she is at home? She is required to stay within 20-minutes of the hospital. What will the holiday bring for her?
As I think of the many sacrifices of those that work in the medical field to cover holidays and everyday, I think of the root meaning of the word “sacrifice” from Latin sacer (sacred) + facere (to make) = “to make sacred.”
At the non-profit health center, they are inspired by a mission that they hold sacred. I contemplate the mission that might inspire a surgical resident: to serve the community, to help others, to give hope, to succeed in the challenge of learning something technically demanding, to look towards a future with a better income, to save the life of someone who comes in with a ruptured appendix, to attend to someone on the journey as they leave this life, to calm the parent who must be there for their child…
Those days of residency are long gone for me; only the memories remain. Some memories are of sacrifice and some are of reward. Today, I contemplate that balance. I still practice medicine part-time because I find reward in the mission; it is also a huge part of who I am. I have sacrificed much to become a doctor; it has changed who I am. Even as I expand that career into teaching and storytelling, my inspiration continues to be how I can heal others–body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
As I move into a new year, I struggle with the questions: What are am I sacrificing? What am I making sacred? Do I have the right balance?