Grandpa’s tragedy pushed her to become a doctor. She made a powerful vow the day he passed

Burnout is real, and when it happens, everything feels pointless. Kelly Cheung (@kellytakesmedicine), MD, Geriatrics & Palliative, revealed that when she was studying to become a doctor, she faced so much pain and burnout, it almost made her quit. In moments when she thought she could no longer push through, her late grandpa’s woeful last moments echoed in her mind. It gave her the strength to be resilient and become a medical professional who makes a difference. Her grandfather and aunt raised Cheung, as her parents were only teenagers when she was born. Having lost her grandfather to medical negligence recently, she was a walking wreck during her residency as a young doctor.

According to a report published by BMC Medical Education, there have been increased reports of burnout among medical students. In the U.S. and Europe, burnout rates among medical students range from 7% to 75.2%, with an overall rate of 37.23%. This greatly impacts the journey of students. Cheung, too, was facing a trying time but was able to mark the end of her residency successfully. She had one person to credit — her late grandpa — without whom the journey would have been much bleaker than it already was. In an open letter to her grandfather, the young woman said, “I just completed the hardest part of my training and I wish you could be there to see it.”

She shared several glimpses of herself trying to keep it together, holding back tears, being completely exhausted and drained. “It was you that kept me from falling apart most days,” she remarked. “I’ve had days where I was so tired, I had to call an Uber. Nights where I’d toss and turn, questioning every clinical decision I made that day,” she said. Her grandfather's ill fate with the hospital made her hyper-aware of the quiet symptoms among patients that doctors generally overlooked. She wouldn't rush to a diagnosis, and instead chose to listen and validate her patients' pain. But the weight of these decisions was heavy, with Cheung perpetually mulling over them in her head, afraid she'd inflict even a tiny percentage of the misery that her grandpa had endured. This led to her getting so overwhelmed that she thought of distancing herself from her patients and colleagues. “But then I thought of how it felt when your doctor dismissed your fatigue and said it was old age. I thought of when your cardiologist didn’t explain what heart failure was before prescribing a bunch of medications that made you dizzy and then fall,” she poignantly noted. "Then your last fall turned into a brain bleed, and then a surgery you could never recover from."

Cheung recounted each of those moments that, unfortunately, led to the passing of her grandpa. It pushed her to realize why every bit of her attention as a doctor mattered. “I was so angry and so devastated. I thought of every day I spent in the ICU at your bedside, when you were dying. I remember screaming inside, 'How was it possible for no one to feel anything when just last week you were driving me to lunch?'” the young woman said. “They didn't believe me, ofcourse. If this was their dad, they’d understand and not treat you like another room number,” Cheung added. She mentioned how she felt “abandoned.” “When you died... everyone had moved on — the health care system, the nurses, the doctors,” she recalled. "I was just left with my grief and sorrow."

These painful recollections helped her push through and overcome her burnout. “It was you that kept me from becoming the doctor I never want to be: indifferent and insensitive,” Cheung said. Every one of her patient interactions holds a glimpse of her grandpa — in the "silly grin" of the older gentleman who excitedly shared how his wife had made the "first move," or the delirious patient in her 80s whom Cheung helped walk down the halls, or the dying ICU patient whose daughter looked just like her — grandpa was everywhere. “Everything I do is for him. He is why geriatrics and palliative care is the only way I know how to heal myself and others,” Cheung wrote in her caption. The doctor left a message for many to take back: “Burning out is an alarm bell — not to stop caring but to start caring for yourself."

You can follow Kelly Cheung (@kellytakesmedicine) on Instagram for more content on medicine and lifestyle.