Why do we do what we do?

We’ve all been there.  You’re on call and come in at 2 am or so.  Then, you get up to be back at work at 7 am.  You work a busy day with barely a chance to stop for a bladder break, much less lunch.  And you go home after 8…10…12 hours to finally rest.  Why do we do it to ourselves?

Because of the patients.  We’ve all been there, too, or at least I hope you have.  It happened to me again yesterday.  The patient came into the room in obvious pain.   A little Versed and Fentanyl later, we got the first guide in and saw the totaled right.  The wire went down easily and a stent soon followed.  We took a look at the left and the ventricle and we were done.  As we were transferring him to the stretcher for the trip to his room, he asked, “Anybody got any soda?”

This is why we do it!  We do it to take people from pain to relief.  We do it to take people from illness to normality.  We do it to take people from a bad place to a happy place.  But it’s even more than that.  We do it so a father can walk his daughter down the aisle.  Or so a grandmother can love on her new grandbaby.  We do it so the golfer can go back and make the shot he was in the middle of when the MI hit.  We do it to keep families together.  We do it so people can have a life again.

And that makes it all worth it.