if i can

It's been another one of those days. Those days when I go through the whole of my time at work without once remembering my true motivations for actually being there. (I'm being very honest with myself here). I seem to spend so much of my time working for my pay-cheque, for my career, for the goal of going part-time, to get the nurses or the managers or the patient's family off my back, for the prestige of being a doctor, to impress my consultant or help my colleagues, to learn, or on my worst days, just to get to the end of the day.

In fact, none of these reasons are enough to do the job I do. My primary reasons for working are - corny as it sounds - to help people who are ill, and to work to the best of my ability to give glory to God. The moments that I love my job are the ones when I suddenly feel that I am really connecting with a patient, whether that's because somehow the advice or medication or treatment that I am giving is helping, or, more often, because they feel someone is listening and understanding their pain.

On days when I am in danger of forgetting all about the real reason I am there because I am bogged down with all the other rubbish that comes with working in the NHS, sometimes this poem helps me.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson

Ok, so maybe the end is more appropriate for an RSPB worker, but the rest of it fits for me. I hope maybe it helps you too.