I have a confession to make.  Never said a word about it until right now.  So, I am just going to say it. Here goes... 

          There was a time when    1) I was one of those people who unwittingly expected perfection from doctors and 2) I was one of those people who assumed that doctors‘ salaries somehow erased their life’s struggles. There… I said it.

So, what suddenly changed my way of thinking?  It was a story.  A young ER doctor talked about the night he was short-staffed because administration had cut back on ER nursing staff. Patient resentment was sending off sparks in the waiting room as the hospital went on diversion...and so it spiraled down, down, down…until he said, “I hate being a doctor”. I knew he meant it.

I remember sitting around the table at a restaurant hearing those unforgettable words as silverware clanked, conversations murmured and chairs scraped forward and back. When Ryan finished his story it felt like someone had punched the volume off.  Never before had I heard a doctor talk about the fears and struggles of being a human being placed in impossible circumstances.

That was the night one person’s story changed my perception; one person’s story changed my life.

And so it is…on behalf of all physicians; we have peeled back the curtain of medicine and exposed the story.  There is no Disney spin; no McDreamy’s; or swaggering martyrs to be found.  Just the naked truth.

Please join us in our grassroots campaign to take The Vanishing Oath into medical schools, to the homes of patients, residency programs and hospitals alike; bring it to the chaplains, places of worship and more across the country.

A structure cannot withstand the elements when cracks have formed in its foundation. Healthcare is no different. It is an industry that was built upon the backs of patients and physicians; without us…there is no healthcare industry.