Medical Students Should Cultivate Several Hobbies Outside Medicine

Recently two young doctors at Nanning People's Hospital have taken their own lives one after another, and another young doctor at a hospital in Hunan has also committed suicide. Reading this news filled me with sorrow. Many of my friends are doctors, and in recent years quite a few colleagues have poured all kinds of complaints out to me; people are generally in a sub-health state. My own state was once quite poor too, but I have more or less adjusted recently, while my cousin, also a doctor, died of illness brought on by accumulated overwork.

COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the global medical profession—one could even call it a severe blow. Around the world, many doctors have died while fighting the epidemic. The virus not only greatly increased the workload of medical staff but also damaged their physical and mental health. Medical workers were the group that rested least during the pandemic, and many were left with aftereffects after contracting COVID.

From the reports, the doctors who took their own lives were basically brought to it by physical discomfort combined with excessive work intensity. After COVID, many people developed post-COVID sequelae; the most common symptoms are fatigue, weakness, tachycardia, catching colds at the slightest trigger, brain fog and depression. But the medical profession is special: the public generally assumes doctors should not be troubled by illness like ordinary people. In fact, up to now, doctors worldwide have generally been at a loss when it comes to post-COVID syndrome; they cannot solve their patients' problems, nor can they solve their own. Many doctors have also come to me for help because of post-COVID aftereffects; my ability is limited, and all I can do is commiserate with them.

Since COVID, doctors' work has become harder. Many chronic-disease patients also have post-COVID sequelae mixed in, making their conditions very tricky. In some patients with a weak constitution, a minor cold after COVID can stump the doctor. Because the COVID virus tore a big hole in the human immune system, many people's immunity is far weaker than before, so even a cold is hard to cure as easily as in the past.

I have experienced this deeply. My spouse has a family history of hypertension and belongs to the group susceptible to post-COVID aftereffects. In her student days she was an athletic star, always being selected for various sports meets. Before COVID she was very healthy and rarely caught colds, but after COVID she catches them frequently. At the slightest exposure to wind-cold, she sneezes nonstop and feels chilled, entering the pre-cold state; sometimes this happens two or three times in a single week. The moment I see the first sign of a cold in her, I take immediate measures to intercept it by every means. If it is not intercepted in time, her cold becomes complicated and hard to treat. My son inherited some of his mother's genes, and his health after COVID is also not as good as before. Of the three of us, only my physical stamina was unaffected.

The cancer patients I care for have also become far more fragile after COVID. At the slightest cold they develop all sorts of dangerous conditions; if treated by routine inpatient care, it is hard to achieve relief within two weeks. Sometimes there is not only no relief but even marked worsening, with severe symptoms. This kind of situation puts great pressure on doctors: not only must they find ways to solve the patient's problems technically, they also face the even harder-to-soothe emotions of patients and their families. Yet many doctors are themselves unwell, perhaps plagued by tachycardia, insomnia, neurasthenia, brain fog, depression and other problems. This pincer attack of work and health easily leaves one utterly exhausted. In such a broad environment, it is not surprising that a few medical staff with weaker psychological resilience take their own lives.

This state of affairs may continue for a long time, until the human species adapts to the COVID virus and establishes a new stable balance. But how long it will take the human body to adapt to the COVID virus is still unknown, how this highly mutable RNA virus will develop in the future is unknown, and when some new virus will appear is unknown. Under these broad premises, the prerequisite for doing our own work well is to know how to take care of our own body and mind, and not to work at the cost of sacrificing our health and breaking down.

The other day my student came to visit me. She is a freshman and wanted some advice from me. I suggested that, alongside her major, she also learn some psychiatry, and that during university she develop several hobbies, get out and see more of the world, and not immerse herself entirely in medicine. A clinical instructor of mine once taught me the same thing. She told me: since you have decided to study medicine, there will be plenty of chances to do clinical work in future, and patients are endless; if you focus too single-mindedly on medicine and your life is too monotonous, I fear you will soon develop occupational burnout.

The pressure doctors face is not something an ordinary person can bear. Doctors deal with disease and life-and-death every day, dealing with a crowd of patients and families facing the ordeal of life and death—and people are psychologically fragile and emotionally unstable in the face of life-and-death trials. All this puts doctors' psychological resilience to the test. A survey on depression shows that doctors are a high-risk group for depression. So every medical student should develop several hobbies, and every day (the word "every day" deserves emphasis) have some time to give the mind a change of scenery, not remain in a state of constant tension, or they will break down before their patients do.

I have a good friend who is a surgeon. He operates very skillfully, and every time before surgery he prepares with meticulous care, not daring to allow the slightest slip, because a single mistake is a matter of life and death. Because of this he often suffers from insomnia, and in life he has become overly cautious and deferential. Being with him is comfortable, because he thinks of every detail for others; his powers of observation are far stronger than other people's, and he remembers our preferences after a single meeting. Later he developed total insomnia through the night, felt that life was meaningless, and constantly thought of death. No matter how good a person others thought he was, or how great a cause he was engaged in, he felt he was utterly worthless. He told me he had not been like this before becoming a doctor; decades of professional life had completely changed him. His life was dull, essentially consisting only of surgery.

I also find it hard to agree with the current model of educating medical staff. Assessments, exams and papers are countless, and many of them are a kind of interference with doctors' normal work, making medical staff live under great pressure. This broad trend may be hard to change for a while; one cannot fight the general environment. But there are still many choices to be made. I think if a person truly loves medicine, having the professional qualification is enough; as for senior professional titles and the like, there is no need to care. What patients always recognize is therapeutic effect, not external titles.

There is a saying among people in the south: "A life's work is done slowly, over a long life." A career that lasts a lifetime need not be rushed. We too must learn to let ourselves live more relaxedly. I love watching the LOHAS people singing and dancing in the park; among them are old people and young, and they are full of vitality. Besides hobbies like singing and dancing, most of them have their own full-time jobs; their mindset is better than average, and most can do their work very well. People have diverse needs that all need to be met, without exception. People whose lives are excessively one-dimensional are very prone to breaking down.