Following a piece which we wrote recently about careers which should demand respect, many of you wrote in asking us why doctors were omitted from the list. The truth of the matter is that when we wrote that piece, the idea was that we were discussing careers which perhaps don’t always get the respect that they deserve, as we assumed that giving people like my very good friend Dr. John Denboer respect, was a given. Given the feedback which we received then, and as an ode to my great friend and brilliant doctor John, we decided to put things right and discuss a little more about why doctors very much deserve our respect.

Work and Effort

Just to be a doctor requires Herculean strength and patience, and a lot of hard work. Most doctors will have been working and studying for almost a decade before they are able to practice as a licensed doctor, a huge effort that they have made just to get there. Once they have a license however, well that is when the real hard work begins and doctors have to work ridiculously long hours, in what is a very testing career.

Sacrifice

Something that many of us fail to see when it comes to doctors are the sacrifices which they have to make in their personal lives because of the career choice that they have made. This means canceled plans are a regular occurrence, letting people down, not seeing friends and family and ultimately forgoing a personal life in favor of helping others. Evidence of this can be seen in the divorce rates amongst doctors, which are significantly higher than anywhere else.

The Job They Do

The job that doctors do is so very specialist and high level, that we can’t help but respect them. Not only are these men and women highly intelligent and have a deep understanding of the human body, every day they put that knowledge to good use in the saving and improving of lives. When it comes to what they do for society, how on Earth can we not respect doctors?

Emotional Toll

Many of us have the thinking that doctors good used to death and tragedy which surrounds them, that somehow they are able to kill of their human emotions and deal with these situations. The truth is that doctors do see this kind of sadness every single day but the idea that they ever get used to it is a foolish one, they just learn how to hide the pain away. What very few of us see however is that emotion when it comes out, and it eventually does. Doctors see awful things every day, they see happy stories and they see tragedy regularly, they are not machines, and coping with what they see can be extremely tough, another reason why they have our respect.

These men and women are absolutely incredible, they are selfless and they are key to our survival and our good health.