Cutting Out

It is 6 pm, June 30, 2008. I am turning off the lights and closing the door to my office for the last time, marking the end of my surgical career— a career that had spanned 35 years… You cannot simply stop being a surgeon. Not unless you become physically unable or legally prohibited from continuing to practice. Neither situation pertained to me. No, you must wind down. There are post-operative patients who must be doctored to full recovery. There are long-time patients who have come to depend upon you, and a reliable replacement must be found for them. There are letters to be written to colleagues. Charts to be put into accessible storage. Instruments, supplies, and other equipment to be parceled out. Books to be given away. Licensing bodies, hospitals, and insurance companies to be notified. But all this was the easy part. The hard part was turning out the lights. It was that slight flick of a finger, something I had done thoughtlessly so many times before. That’s when it hit me. It was over. A renunciation was subsumed in that final act: abandonment, a cop-out, something irreversible. Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life? Surgeons cannot afford to make mistakes, do not forget. I did not rush into this decision. I thought about it for years. Many years. Even as a pre-med in college, I began to question my planned career trajectory. Especially at exam time. I didn’t enjoy science courses; my love was English literature. Science to me was cold, hard facts and formulae—black and white. Poems and stories were adventurous and emotionally evocative—technicolor. Lab assignments were drudgery. Required reading, given sufficient time, was a pleasure. I had my doubts in medical school. I was motivated to help people, but, instead, I was inundated with facts seemingly unassociated with patient care. I thought long and hard about giving it up, as I struggled through a brutal, five-year surgical residency. I thought about it when I first started practicing and realized I naively had joined up with a surgical bad actor. I thought about it after my first, second, third, and fourth heart attacks. It was then that a plan started to take form. Please understand that I’m not a quitter. With the tenacity of a bulldog, I have finished every task and surmounted each obstacle that was set before me. Yet, in the last years, something was gradually changing deep inside. Slowly, I was beginning to experience a sense of freedom, of possibilities I never considered. I began to feel happy, whole, loving, and lovable. I saw spiritual potential within and around me. I came to think of my heart attacks as the key to improved health. After half a lifetime apart, I reunited with my soulmate, Mary. She led me to yoga. She taught me about gratitude. She helped me put my life into proper perspective. She provided the spark that ignited the torch, illuminating what has become a spiritual journey. She showed me the trailhead, beyond which lay a brighter path. If I had turned off the office lights without her, I would have been left groping about in the dark.