If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
This is another interesting prompt that caught my eye. It occured to me that I perhaps had no interest in being another person per se. But I did want to mentally explore what another version of me could me. Currently I am daughter, sister, wife, friend, colleague, doctor (paediatrician). Those identities are quite enough to be getting on with! The other identities that I thought about are perhaps those unfulfilled aspects of my life. Those areas where nature, fate, or choices I made, took me down a different path. I don’t have children and I always wonder what my life would have been like if I had had my own. At present I would never want to be anything other than a paediatrician but at certain points in my training to be a doctor, I did feel drawn to other specialities.
Mother
I would like to be a mother, but of course, one is mother for life, not just for one day.
I have always wondered:
- what it would be like to look at my own positive pregnancy test
- to be pregnant and feel that first kick
- to be pregnant and feel the baby moving around
- to pregrant see limbs moving under the skin
- to hold my own baby in my arms right after giving birth
I have always wanted someone to call me “Mummy’. Somebody who I could protect and care for. Somebody I could nuture and prepare for the future world and see the joys and good in the current world.Somebody who would trust that I always had their back, whatever the circumstances.
Obstetrician
I would spend one day as an obstetrician – what did I miss by making difference choices very early on in my career?
When I was a medical student, I really really enjoyed my obstetrics rotation. For the whole time I was there, I felt quite strongly that obstetrics was what I wanted to specialise in, “when I grew up”. I loved going to clinic, measuring baby bumps, learning about the complicated and fascinating world of pregnancy. I was amazed the strength of the human body. We had to be present at and support a specific number of deliveries, to get signed of for that rotation. I think my first delivery was at Harold Wood Hospital (it no longer exists). My 22-year old self, was just gobsmacked.
I wonder what my life would have been like if I made a different choice at the end of my house officer year in 2001 to apply for an obstetric and gyanecology rotation/senior house officer post. By now, if I had continued I would be an obstetric consultant with two decades of experience under my belt. I would like to think, that despite the horror show that is the NHS right now, I would enjoy the practice of obstetric medicine. I imagine, some parts are rewarding, if there is a good team and resources available. I am sure there was a time when obstetricians knew their patients there was much more continuity of care. Therefore following a woman’s journey through her pregnancy and beyond would have been rewarding and reassuring for both sides.
Neonatologist
I would like to be a neonatologist for a day – what did I miss by making a different decision in 2007.
When I was in training to be a paediatrician, I discovered that I loved neonatology. Although I was a junior doctor at that time, I found many aspects of the job extremely rewarding. The results of our team efforts were often immediate and then the long-term outcomes were also something to look forward to when we met the ‘neonatal graduates’ later in the clinics. I think I was influenced by the love of the science of babies and the passion, dedication and meticulousness of the consultants that I worked with. Like obstetrics it a very hands on profession there is a great deal of technical skill to learn and perfect and then pass onto the next generation of doctors.
Is there a paediatrician in the house…?
Of course, I am a community paediatrician, so everyone of my patients was neonate! Everytime I meet the mother of a new patient I have to take an obstetric history and consider if this has influenced the physical and behavioural presentation that I am now being asked to assess. I take my professional responsibilities towards my patients and their parents and carers very seriously. When I am sitting in my chair in my clinic room, opposite a mother, I am always thinking if I was this mother, what would I want from this me and this system ? And then I simply ask them what do you need, how can we help you?. We can’t do or know everything. But we can try, we can listen and we can be honest about what is possible. It’s funny, I am also cognisant of the fact that in other parts of the world, where resources are scarce, I would be all these things, and nobody would bat an eyelid…
Perhaps the universe had other plans for me and maybe that’s just OK. I’m where I need to be and who I need to be, in this world. So maybe I don’t get to be a mother in this lifetime but I hope I can help those that come to my office. I chose not to be an obsetrician or a neonatologist but they are my closest clinical counterparts, inextricably linked in with the work that I do. In a parallel universe, maybe I am all these things and more. Who knows?
