Within 4 walls

The thing about Paeds that bothers me is seeing all the injustices inflicted on completely innocent kids. There are mothers who drug themselves when pregnant, kids who are abused physically, emotionally, sexually, toddlers who in their few months of life have become all too well acquainted with needles, blood tests, chemo, nasogastric tubes. And when I see them, I am suffused by this sense of compassion that very quickly gives rise to indignation that blots out all objectivity. Thoughts and feelings just get so muddled up. In between feeling angry that any mother will destroy their own kid and feeling sorry for the kid, there is an understanding too that it isn't really all the mother's fault, that life sometimes deals unkind blows to pple and they have no other avenue to turn to but to seek solace in drugs. And then I feel afraid because I look at their lives and there is this self acknowledgement that had I been born into similar circumstances I probably wouldn't have had a much different outcome. I am simultaneously aware that as a med student and as a doctor in the future, one is expected to be professional, to not let things get too personal or emotional, to care but not let it influence one's life too much. And that to me is so hard, to be able to dissociate one's heart and mind at command, to leave behind the emotions so one can care rationally, objectively and passionately.