SQUARING OFF THE CIRCLES

Many years ago, when I was an intern, the college held a debate on “Should doctors marry only doctors”

I spoke then for the motion, but for totally different reasons.

I was familiar with the wife of one of our senior very prominent professors, who happened to be in charge of the Adult education department of thee Rajasthan University. I just happened to ask her how it felt to be married to such an eminent doctor. Her answer didn’t quite intrigue me, for she felt that the doctors are the most insipid dry and drab kind of persons…the most unclubbable people of the lot. I voiced these very sentiments and offered that the only and easiest way to put an end to the lot was for them to marry each other, and thus ruin just one family and household rather than two. To top it off I concluded with a question to those doctors in the audience who were married to doctors whether given a second chance they would commit the same folly again. My speech was greeted with a deafening silence.

Many years passed, and I was appointed as Assistant Professor in the S P Medical College, Bikaner. One day the Literary secretary of the Students union came to meet me and requested me to judge the college debate. I gladly agreed and asked him the topic. “Should doctors marry only doctors” he said! Coincidence? Or persistence!

In 1999, I had the good fortune to be posted in my alma mater, the SMS Medical College, Jaipur as Professor of Orthopaedics. One day, I was approached by the Literary Secretary that the staff advisor of the Student’s Union had asked him to contact me to judge the Annual English Debate. I readily consented. The topic of the debate? “Doctors should only marry doctors!”

Back to square one, after going the whole roundabout.

Some of the better halves of delegates attending the Asia Pacific Conference on Infection at Khajuraho, India participated in a debate on ‘should doctors marry doctors. Apparently, the controversy or otherwise just refuses to die down or come to rest.

This set me thinking. Was my sarcasm of earlier years really not so misplaced? Was there some substance in this askance? Rather curiously, I came across a blog in the BMJ doctor’s forum of which I was a regular reader and contributor.

An article appeared in the BMJ Career Focus in 2006 by Karen Hebert. It deals with the ease and the hassles of marriage within the profession. This became the focus of a blog on the forum

According to the article by Karen I have just quoted, there is no real difference in divorce rates in medical marriages but there is also evidence that while the marriages are stable, many spouses are chronically unhappy.          

Michael Myers, a psychiatrist from Vancouver has described several particular difficulties that can be faced in a medical marriage.

What are these hassles?

OVERWORK AND EXHAUSTION

Mark Pickering, Christian Medical Fellowship student secretary and Nucleus editor, is married to another doctor. He agrees, “The disadvantages tend to come from the all-encompassing nature of medicine, that really is a way of life rather than a 9-5 job. Two sets of on-calls with busy days and emergencies mean home life can get really squeezed. Pickering believes: “There’s also the danger of seeing life as if medicine is the only really important job and that doctors are the only really important people.

Myers points out that overwork can sometimes be a symptom of problems with a  relationship—where someone chooses to work extra hours to escape tension and unhappiness at home.

MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS

 Doctors are often guilty of neglecting themselves, and this can in turn hurt a marriage. In fact, we are one of the worst professions in terms of self-care.

 Doctors are also at high risk of substance abuse. They won’t admit to having any problems, and many suffer mental health difficulties in silence    

BALANCING ACT

Wayne and Mary Sotile have spent 24 years working in the field of medical marriages. They highlight another important stressor in medical marriages. “Both men and women these days are compelled to be more whole people when it comes to work and family. Women who were historically the support systems for physician families are now driven to do more outside the home, either with a career or with other non-family responsibilities.” 

WIVES LIVES

Bhupinder Sandhu, past president of the Women’s Medical Federation, points out: “Partnership in marriage is essential. If you are married to a medic that partnership can come under all sorts of stresses as a result of competing careers, clashing rotas, and the availability of jobs. All too often, in my experience, it has been the wife who has made the sacrifice, taken the lioness’s share of the care of the children, the career break, or career path  that has made that care possible and consequently has not benefited or achieved the career that, when you look at her initial potential, she should have achieved.”  

BETTER UNDERSATNDING

Pickering adds, “Make sure that your family isn’t squeezed between two tired, over busy doctors who both think that their own career is the most important thing in the world.”

                The crux of the situation is if you are a doctor married within the profession, make your life outside the profession equally or more important than your work life. That is the only way to remedy your mistake, folly, or whatever!