The Doctor’s Museum

 The door slams, Dakota watches her husband slam his stethoscope on the table,  “What’s wrong Ajay? Why are you so upset?”

“All of my patients are dying and I’m tired,” he explained.

“Are they really dying...if you tried to save them?” Ajay’s wife asked with a straight face.

“Dakota what the hell are you talking about? Stop with the games. I’m a doctor, my job is to save lives and nothing is working.”

Dakota shakes her head, “Ajay, sometimes people just need something to believe in, it helps them heal. If they die, does that make it your fault?” 

Ajay looks at the pictures of his family “Mrs. Shaw, her family did thank me. They sent me a gift card with their whole family’s signatures on it. I’m loved by all kinds of people from many different races, even when I’ve felt like a failure. Some of my patients who’ve lived have even named their kids after me.”

His wife begins to cough.

“Are you okay?” Ajay says.

She starts laughing.

“The power to believe in something is what heals people Ajay. It’s what motivates us to make miracles happen. Medicine can only do so much. I can guarantee that if you can find what made you become a doctor you’ll feel much better.”

Ajay paused for a second, “It was the war in Vietnam, my father was on the front lines and the doctor said it was in God’s hands when he died, and I wanted God to save my father, but he died right before the war ended. I became a doctor because I didn’t understand the point of him fighting if he had to die so young. I was driven to make a difference,” Ajay explained to his wife.

“You wanted to make a difference out of a misunderstood equation. Think of it like a museum, a child walks through inspired to carryon the legacy of others. No one knows what a child will become and that’s the most powerful thing. The child develops this belief, and it never dies unless the child gives up. Your museum is yet to be discovered, and you may never know how some child will find it to have something to believe in. The funny part is that you might not even know where your museum will be found. It’s a win win situation for you Ajay, why give up now? Death is only the beginning of another journey. If your face is the last face that people see before they die, most likely they’re preparing your legacy on both sides. One will be of what’s left here and the other will be to rest up from all of the trials and hard work you put in on earth. Why give up when you’re giving each side something to believe in?”

Ajay smiled, kissed his wife and carried on with his practice. It was too late to give up now. Sometimes the patient is what gave the doctors their strength. Their ability to mediate between life and death flowed through each generation to provide more determination to overcome the odds. The doctor set the standards which gave people enough determination to create a Doctor’s Museum for the world to see. If crazy is misunderstood, who would be crazy enough to try and fix the misunderstanding? Most likely the person trying to solve the problem.

The Doctor’s Museum