In different areas of The medical profession It is surprising how the first numbers in the MIR choose apparently more comfortable specialties, which demand less sacrifice, such as dermatologythe specialty chosen by the last three numbers one. Patricia Andrés, number 1 of 2023, during the race felt “vocation” for internal medicine. However, he chose dermatology: “I was with some doctors and they told me the variables that I had to take into account: quality of life, whether or not you have or not you have private.”
Since ancient times, medicine (today we would say health professions) has been considered a Vocational profession. Vocation, it comes from Latin callingwhich meant “appeal.” That is why the term is used in English calling. The vocation has been understood as the inclination (the “call”) of a person towards a certain activity. It has always been pointed out that there are vocational professions. Of course medicine, but also teaching, priesthood or politics. Religious vocations have greatly influenced the call, due to the transcendent element inherent to them. Together with professional vocations, other human activities have also been considered vocational, because they also need an intimate inclination, such as fatherhood or arts (literature, painting, interpretation).
Changes in society and in the exercise of medicine have led to propose if there is A crisis in the medical vocation (or health). It has been questioned until that of the vocation, in reality, it is nothing more than gadget to subject the subjects under the yoke of medicine, politics, the army or religion. Or if it is a Chinese story to justify, through supernatural elements (the call), the privileges of certain social groups.
Lisa Rosenbaum in About the vocation: of privileged professionals to gears of capitalism?published in The New England Journal of Medicineexplains how, as society has placed work in its center (workismwhich could be translated as “WORKING“) and as medicine has been corporatized, medicine has gone from being a” vocation “to a job. No more, no less. Doctors before feeling that sacrificing gave them spiritual fullness. They had a special task that they performed as human beings. Now, however, they have more and more that before was sacredIt is a simple job. One way to make a living like any other. In addition, the demands of medicine come into conflict with leading a good life, the main aspiration of new generations.
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Lisa Rosenbaum’s article tells the testimony of Austin Wittwhich has just finished the residence in family medicine. Austin thinks that describing his work as a “vocation” goes against those who are being formed. Is “An subjugation mediuma way of forcing them to accept bad working conditions. “Lisa Rosenbaum explains that for many young people the word” vocation “suggests a moral superiority that medicine has not earned. For Austin his sense of duty is the same as that of his grandfather, who was an electrician. He is independent of institutional loyalty or working conditions, which, he says,” oppress us. ”
Is there really vocation, or are they simple motivations for exercising a profession? Vocation and motivation, Although they are compatible, They are not the same. It is said that someone has or has a vocation, as a characteristic of the person, while if it’s (or not) motivated, because it is something provisional. A doctor can have a deep vocation, but be demotivated by labor problems. As there are also doctors without vocation (who have chosen medicine due to prestige or family inertia), who are very motivated, because they like what they do, because they earn money or for whatever.
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What do they mean that medicine, or another profession, is a vocation? Almost all “vocations” are public service professions. Works in which the selfish interests of the professional do not matter so much, but the values they are in, the service they give. This does not mean that a waiter or an electrician (like Austin’s grandfather) does not give a service. Many times they give it more than a doctor. But the doctor, the teacher or politician directly manage, have in their hands, essential human valuessuch as health, education or the common good.
What can be done regarding the crisis that the vocation is experiencing? Look for a lover. Gregorio Marañón has in a beautiful text of 1946, Vocation and ethicswhere dissects the characteristics of the medical vocation. For Marañón, the ideal vocation is very similar to loveit is “a passion that has the characteristics of love, namely: exclusivity in the beloved object and absolute disinterest in serving it.” Despite this idealistic vision, Marañón detects many of the problems that have been named and points a solution: look for other occupations. On the one hand, because “we all carry a much more complex personality than that indicated by our official facade” and, on the other, because “the most sincerely felt and loved profession, more embedded with our skills, ends up automating, for losing its rubbing with the environment, becoming an easy mechanism.” Diversify, doing different things to our profession, is very healthy, to, Marañón explains, “compensate for monotony.”
The playwright Antón Chekhovwho was a doctor, said that “medicine is my legitimate wife; literature is my lover. When I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.” Doing different things makes us disconnect, it entertains us, Avoid professional saturationextends horizons and even reconciles with the “legitimate wife.” It is the best formula to combine vocation and motivation.
