Today marked another unbelievable tragedy in American history. Twenty-seven are dead in Newtown, CT. Twenty of them were elementary school students. The school ran kindergarten through fourth grade. The principal was murdered. The school psychologist murdered. Dozens of children executed. I've heard that word, "executed," used quite a bit day, and it is only appropriate. Almost zero injuries, only death.
I've written quite a bit about the helplessness that medical students begin to feel in their third year. We enter as first-years expecting to ameliorate suffering in our patients. This profession is a golden opportunity to improve the health and lives of our fellow human beings. The doctor is an all-powerful being. Rarely do we think that we are going to fail, we are going to make mistakes, and we are going to fall short. We imagine our power to be much greater than it actually is. However, third year is a real wake-up call. As we spend more time in clinical medicine, many struggle with the limits of our knowledge and capabilities. Not just the knowledge that we lack as third-years, but the capabilities that we will always lack. I cannot ensure that my patients take their medications or quit smoking. I cannot guarantee they will have food on the table, and a roof over their heads. I cannot always safeguard a child from the trauma of physical abuse, or the tragedy of a mass execution. The guns used in the massacre today were legally registered to the perpetrator's mother. A pediatrician can talk about gun safety in the household, but cannot ensure it.
I don't know much about gun laws, but I do know we don't take mental health seriously enough in this country. We have no problem understanding disease processes that we can see: the flu causes fever, diarrhea, and vomiting. These are easy, physical symptoms that we can identify, and we understand the need for medical intervention. We even develop annual vaccines so we can avoid this illness. Diseases of the brain, however, these are more difficult to comprehend and more difficult to prevent. Interventions for these illnesses often do not receive the same amount of funding or support. The public doesn't equate diseases of the mind and diseases of the body. But they are one and the same. The mind is the body, and the body is the mind. The aggregate of the mental health of our populace is our country's health.
I wish I knew how to ensure that a tragedy like this will never happen again. Yet again I feel helpless, but I also feel a responsibility to try. Like medical training, it is our duty to learn as much as we can and do our best for others, even if we fail. I've enjoyed many subspecialties during my training, but few more than Pediatric Surgery. Watching TV today certainly made me wonder whether I could have handled being the surgeon on-call when those two children rolled into the Emergency Room. I want to think I could have, and that I would have been at my absolute best. If that is the road I take, perhaps that is my part. Or my part will be advocacy. Or something else. All I know is that the statement "this is an inevitability of our culture" is not acceptable. We can be better.
I moved my flight up a couple days, so I will be flying home to DC tomorrow. I will hug my parents a little harder when I return home.
So, too, will your parents.
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