# The young doctor who wanted to quit

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-intern-doctor-care-not-cure
- Themes: caring, compassion, failure, death, work
- Life situations: healthcare work, delivering bad news, feeling like a failure, caregiving, burnout

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

A first-year intern loses his first patient, a young mother, and must tell her husband that his wife is dead and his kids have no mother. Shattered, he comes to Ajahn Brahm wanting to resign. Ajahn Brahm tells him he has misunderstood a doctor's role: it is not to cure but to care. You cannot always cure, but you can always care — and then you never fail, and can tell the family their loved one died being loved and cared for.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

The doctor, he’s not here this evening, he lost his first patient first year as a doctor, as an intern, came to see me, wanted to resign, “I don’t want to be a doctor anymore.” Why? He said, “Cos I had to tell, I had to tell this girl’s widow, this young man, the one he loved the most in his life, is dead. And your kids have got no mother.” And you could see just the pain in this poor young man’s face. He’d just come back from the hospital, I don’t know whether it’s Royal Perth or Charlies Gairdner’s, just having told, you know, this poor guy, you know that he lost his wife, kids have no mom, and that just hurt him so much. Can you imagine having to do that? He said, “I can’t do this anymore, I have to just give in. I can’t be a doctor. Cos that’s going to happen again and I just can’t face having to be the one to tell somebody the incredibly painful news.” That’s when I told him and said, “You’ve misunderstood what being a doctor is all about. If you think that being a doctor is curing all your patients, you are going to fail so many times in your life. You’re going to go through this so many times. The reason is because you haven’t understood what the role of a doctor is. The role of a doctor is not to cure, is to care. To care for your patients, not to cure them.” You know what I mean, if curing is the number one thing you're supposed to do, some of the interventions which happen in hospitals today – cure at all costs, forget about caring for the patients. If it hurts, it’s going to prolong their life unnecessarily, that’s curing. Caring is a totally different agenda. If it’s caring, a lot of times, I have to care for this person, it’s time to let them go. No more interventions. The quality of their moment is more important than keeping them alive. And I said, “If your job as a doctor is to care for people, you will never have to fail. You can always care for people, you can’t always cure them. Therefore you can always be a successful doctor. You will lose many of your patients. They will die. But you will be able to go to their widow, to their family and say – they were cared for. They were cared for to the max, and the family, yeah they will be sad. They’ll realise everything was done and your loved one died, being loved and cared for.

## Teaching point

The most important thing to do for the one in front of you is to care, not to cure.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A young intern lost his first patient, a young mother, and wanted to quit after telling her husband. Ajahn Brahm reframed the job: you can't always cure, but you can always care, so you never truly fail. Medical choices belong with patients, families and their doctors. At home the lesson is simpler: stop trying to fix the people you love, and look after them.

## Source

- [Why are we here? Why are we born? | Ajahn Brahm | 09-01-2015](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrCjzi74BA) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 23:42 to 26:22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrCjzi74BA&t=1422s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Having Positive Attitudes towards Everybody | Ajahn Brahm | 12 March 2021](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsIU4DM27nQ) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 43:51 to 46:47: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsIU4DM27nQ&t=2631s
- [What path to take in life? | Ajahn Brahm | 08-02-2013](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn47GEy51WM) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 17:06 to 18:59: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn47GEy51WM&t=1026s
- [How to deal with abusive relationships | Ajahn Brahm | 13-03-2015](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGKQmP7jZs) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 13:35 to 14:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGKQmP7jZs&t=815s
- [Different perspective on empathy | Ajahn Brahm | 15 Jul 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ktH395ZY4) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 27:57 to 29:05: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ktH395ZY4&t=1677s
- [The Healing Power of Meditation | Ajahn Brahm | 26 April 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L29H6tdvTqI) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 21:24 to 23:11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L29H6tdvTqI&t=1284s