It's hard being me.
People expect things, miracles, that I can't give them. They expect me to give free surgeries and offer expensive procedures to the needy with abandon and not worry about things like running a department or meeting the budget that includes their six figure paychecks.
Helping the needy was a dream of mine. I used to believe in free healthcare for all and handing out surgery that wasn't even medically necessary like it was candy. I used to be so eager to cut that I would have given anybody anything.
That was before I grew up, before a board of executives who have no idea about medicine, about saving lives, pushed a piece of paper with numbers in my face and told me to live and die by those numbers.
Before I had to put a dollar value on human life.
My surgeons think I'm cold, that I don't care.
They don't know me.
I walk around the hospital with a smile on my face, trying to keep the morale up. I encourage our attendings and give them opportunities for expensive grants. I engage the residents in competition. I've turned my head far too many times with Bailey's class; all because I knew they could eventually make a difference.
They can make a difference where I haven't.
What I do will never be enough. Morale isn't enough for anybody, it isn't tangible. I can't produce something for them to hold and my promises mean nothing these days. They want more from me than what I can offer. The only things I can do are smile and tell them they're doing a good job. The most I can do is hope that they'll find another way.
I want them to move beyond budgets, to disregard numbers, and take the price tag off of human life.
I need them to.
While I wait, I'll continue to smile. I'll continue to pat them on the back and provide constructive criticism and wait for the day that they change it all just because I told them that they couldn't.