Medicine is a field full of challenges as well as rewards, just like any other profession, and way too much has been written about it for me to do it justice at this time.  So let’s just make it simple: I have luckily chosen the career path years ago that suited my personality and God – given skills or lack of skills fairly well, and I have no doubt that the spiritual rewards I have enjoyed far outweigh the burdens placed on my average and often unworthy shoulders.

Multiplied by a hundred.  Maybe a thousand, I don’t know.

So like all of my esteemed colleagues, I have studied, practiced, worried and lost it seems, years of sleep while learning this field and then applying that knowledge in the “trenches”  while outwardly trying to display unwavering confidence to those who watch me. I know they need to see this confidence, whether real or not.  Knowledge is good and science with all its discoveries gushes forward endlessly like a Niagara Falls of hope for the stricken.  I desperately try to drink from those falls as often as possible, but succeed only in getting a cupful of water from the ladle that I place in front of her; she will stop her thunderous roar for no mere mortal. And so I walk away from the roar quaffing from the ladle, feeling satisfied, then look back at the roar and feel like an utter failure.  Again.

But knowledge, though essential, isn’t everything in this field.  You need something else too, that you know, “je ne sais quoi.”

In fact, I believe my physician/surgeon colleagues are often smarter than I am, and frequently more skilled, at least in certain circumstance perhaps, and so I therefore respect their opinions and seek them. It helps the patient first off, and second, makes me look smarter than I am when I know when to call for help.  But when I become too confident, or perhaps a little cocky, I realize that danger is about to strike me down to size immediately and burn me into a piece of meaningless charcoal.

One day I’m a hero at the bedside; the next day I can be a lowly worm, it seems.

So recently, I received a frantic call from an OB/GYN surgeon that her young patient had just suffered a cardiac arrest after giving birth, and was now in shock, bleeding to death and my help was needed.  I dropped what I was doing and drove up to another hospital, perhaps fifteen minutes away.  In the car on the way, I felt an anxiety about what was going to happen and what would be required while anxiously awaiting red stoplights to turn green.

So, I did the only thing I could do at that point in the car:  I prayed.  “God, please don’t let this young mother die and help me to save her.” And suddenly, I felt a warm wave of calmness while I pulled into the hospital parking lot.

I spent hours at her bedside, treating her and working with multiple highly skilled nurses, technicians, respiratory therapist and others.  I felt clear headed and calm; confident that we were doing the best we could with the situation, and after about five hours of frantic resuscitation efforts, we were able to save her life.  Notice I said “We” and not “I” because it was a team effort and I was simply a team leader. I was lucky to have such great people to work with.

The next day, I transferred the case to a highly skilled surgeon who later told me in front of others, “Carson, without you there, the patient would’ve died.  So, I told her husband and mother that, in fact, I told them if they ever have another child, be it a boy or girl, they need to name the child Carson, after you.”

“Thanks”, I said.  Or I think I said it while my face blushed, especially when thinking of a girl named Carson.  “I don’t know about that.  I didn’t do much but be there while all the nursing staff and others did great work.”

Some days later, her husband raced around the hospital to find me and thank me, then he made me go back to the room to see his mother.  She hugged me for about five glorious minutes, crying and thanking me for saving her daughter.  You see, that is a reward that I didn’t expect or go after, and yet, a reward that makes this profession completely incomparable.  But I am convinced a physician must show humility, or he will fail.

And yes, I thanked God, once again, for answering my prayers

SRC