As long as I can remember, people have told me that if I went into health care, I would have a set job after college. One that paid well, allowed me to help people, and have a fulfilling career that I was never bored at. So, I, like a lot of people, ran with the idea and knew I wanted to go into something that was health-related. Of course, that wasn’t the only motivating factor for me to go into this field, as I found my interest in optometry through the classes I had taken. But, I have found that I want to be honest with myself and make sure I am not going into health care for the wrong reasons.
A lot of us go into health care because we want to do something meaningful. Something that will affect people’s lives in a positive way. But, I feel that we often forget how hard being in the health care field can really be. The honest truth is that it can be very emotionally tolling. For example, if you are a doctor, individual’s lives are literally put into your hands, and the decisions you make may have dire consequences. The same is true for nurses and many other professions.
We owe it to our future patients to make sure that we go into this field not for the social status that these jobs bring, but for the good it does for other people. Real lives are affected by how well we do our jobs, which places a great deal of responsibility on us. We owe it to the people we are taking care of to go into this field with the purest of hearts and really evaluate ourselves for why we want to do these jobs. Because if it is for selfish reasons, perhaps we should look for other careers to fulfill us in that way.