BaTHcE k Pages Contents Viewpoint

378 THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF to be creative, convincing themselves that the only ESSAY BEING A DOCTOR acceptable way to be is textbook medic — Keeping the NHS on course: knowledgeable and yet bereft of individuality. I, politicians’ proposals for the The graduates stand like flock’s of crows on a line, next 4 years their capes billowing in the breeze, their bright along with many of my colleagues, trapped myself Roger Jones faces squinting into cameras under the peaks of under the burden, or ‘weight’ of this idea of a dressing-up-box mortar boards. These are our doctor that has no personal meaning. Since this 381 young doctors. Six years at university and finally sort of internal conflict only leads to unhappiness, ESSAY Peace within a password the prefix is theirs. What pride and achievement! perhaps we might all be better abandoning the Elizabeth Ingall However, the pomp and self-congratulation of weighty notions of ‘the doctor’. graduation day is the carefully gilded surface of a Why do we cling to such notions of our role? 381 profession in something of an existential crisis. Supposedly because to not do so would mean The fallacy of Van Helmont’s admitting that it is arbitrarily irrelevant whether we tree While we may know how to perform our role, we Mike Fitzpatrick do not really understand it, and even less so, become doctors or not. But still, as one critic says, understand ourselves. ‘The unbearable aspect of lightness is the hollow 382 Studying for yet another exam, my eyes stray feeling one gets after having been compelled by ESSAY from my textbooks towards a dog-eared copy of weight to act in a self-sacrificial manner that Knowing me, Knowing you: promises deeper contentment, but yields no personality and peer The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan appraisal Kundera. 1 Written in 1984, it is at once a tangible results except a warm fuzzy feeling of Jill Murie philosophical discussion of the nature of the 20th moral right-standing, which is an unlikely century ‘being’, and a novel of love, infidelity and consolation’. 2 So, in clinging to weighty ideals of the 384 politics in communist-run Czechoslovakia between doctor role, we are still left with this unbearably poor ESSAY There’s no such thing as 1968 and the early 1980s. While I had always consolation. flexible training for admired its astute observations about Of course, what explains our own feelings and GP trainees relationships, the central philosophical themes of behaviour, explains our patients’ too. Some of our Samir Dawlatly ‘lightness’ and ‘weight’ caught my imagination this patients may lead ‘heavy’ lives, full of ties and with 385 time, opening up a framework to explore my own a sense of inevitability, such as Tereza. Some may ESSAY dissatisfaction with my ‘Doctor’ role. Kundera’s lead ‘light’ lives without attaching themselves to Restricting minor surgery in themes of ‘lightness’ and ‘weight’ derive from anything or anyone. These distinctions in life general practice: Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return which posits philosophy are augmented at times of illness, pain another example of financial short-termism that the changing nature of the universe means that and distress and must be important considerations Edin Lakasing every state of the world could recur ad-infinitum, for us as we treat people. trapping us within a type of fate, something Kundera has no clear resolution but comments 387 Nietzsche proclaimed a terrifying, ‘weighty’ burden. that: ESSAY The overgrown garden Kundera describes its opposite, ‘lightness’, as Peter Davies causing man to ‘become only half real, his ‘Without realizing it, the individual composes movements as free as they are insignificant.’ his life according to the laws of beauty even in 388 The main characters, Tomas and Sabina (his times of great distress.’ To whom it may concern mistress), are characterised by ‘lightness’ – they Helen Lester don’t ally themselves to political parties, traditional What matters most, Kundera says, is the journey morality, a single sexual partner, or even a job role. of human experience that allows us to find meaning In comparison, Tomas’ long-term girlfriend, Tereza, and significance in things that others might have is a ‘heavy’ character, she cannot accept the found insignificant or weightless. As the charades unbearable lightness of being and seeks to attach of career progression play on year after year, I shall meaning and ‘weight’ to what she considers remember this and ensure that once the hoops are important in life. jumped, I make my career my own, and learn to So how could ‘lightness’ and ‘weight’ aid me in bear the lightness of being. an attempt to understand myself and my role as a Georgina Fozard doctor better? My first thought was that I was finding embodying the role of ‘Doctor’ difficult REFERENCES 1. Kundera M. The unbearable lightness of being . New York, NY: because I had made it too ‘heavy’. The Harper Collins, 1984. romanticised image of the vocation fits poorly with 2. Vitsha X. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. http://www.shvoong.com/books/136597-unbearable-lightness/ its reality as a depersonalised conveyor-belt (accessed 12 Apr 2010). education: many students lose faith in their ability DOI: 10.3399/bjgp10X501967

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