I Will Come To The Water

When I was young, I stumbled up the mountain in search of knowledge. Years later, I descended to the water when knowing no longer quenched my thirst. I took the news poorly even though I barely knew the woman. We had talked on the phone a few times, over the years, regarding shared patients. I heard that she loved to swim. They found her car parked in the lot adjacent to the beach. It was rumored that she was far too strong a swimmer for this to be an accident. But later there were whispers that she swallowed a bevy of pills before striding confidently into the waves that early morning. They fished her body out of the water hours later. And I wondered about this lonely profession that we share. I have said multiple times that physicians are like islands floating in the vast sea. We may interact with others from time to time, but we are mostly on our own. There is no one with us in the middle of the night as we answer persistent phone calls. We carry the weight of the consequences of these decisions largely in solitary. I heard that she was embroiled in a law suit, someone mentioned a federal investigation into illegally purchasing chemotherapeutic agents to offer to her patients at a discount. I highly doubt most of it. I imagine that she was enamored with the water. We return our dead to the land for the most part, but maybe burial at sea is more appropriate. Our bodies are water after all. Her plasma mixing with the unimaginable vastness, maybe she no longer felt alon...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - Category: Family Physicians Authors: Source Type: blogs