How much 'work'?

It seems a bit strange that after many years of wanting to 'retire' from medical practice, i have not done so. This year has been in particular a challenging time, having to decide whether i should take on extra locum sessions - it seems like more work than i expected or really wanted has been offered. In actual fact, i have taken on much more than the last year or two. Even then i just could not manage to take on a fairly long stretch of locum that involved eleven hours of day in a busy clinic!! At least that much i was able to decide based on knowing how much i can actually handle without getting stressed out. Even then it is not easy to know when i should say Yes and when i need not.

How much does one really 'need'? This question of needs and wants is most difficult to answer, all the more when there are family members to consider. Anyway, at present i tend to base my decision on an average monthly income that i think i will need, although there are always unexpected things like replacing car tyres and correcting plumbing problems at home!

To people i probably sound like a 'reluctant' doctor........it is not clinical work as such but the way i see health and healing these days. I find myself not so eager to give quick remedies (though that's the expected role) but rather to relate to people on their needs as a whole (rather than just address the cold or cough or bodyache). I found a lot of relief when i read the writing of the late Gerald May (a psychiatrist and spiritual director) as i felt the same way without being able to articulate it myself: He writes about

"professional caregivers who struggle to seek a deep prayerful presence while they are with their clients or patients....I have seen scores of health care professionals ...gradually leave their traditional professional roles because they are no longer satisfied with being technicians and cannot bear the duplicity of working with people who want technical help"

(I must add that there is nothing wrong with the patient's perspective of wanting solutions....but the health professional has a real struggle when they no longer belief in just providing technical help! In my case, as perhaps in May's, our immersion in the practice of spiritual direction has moved us to see life and persons in a different, less problem oriented way)