There comes a moment in every doctor’s life when they pause—not because they finally have time, but because exhaustion leaves them no choice. In that pause, somewhere between the relentless demands of duty and the quiet depletion of self, a question rises from the silence: Was it worth it?

Last night, I sat at the dinner table with my children and my parents—a gathering far too rare, a constellation of faces I love the most. As laughter mingled with the aroma of food, my phone kept buzzing, its insistent vibration a familiar soundtrack to my life. I glanced at the screen and found it was Doctors’ Day. Messages began to arrive—some warm, others polite, a few copy-pasted, and most simply saying, “Thank you.” But instead of feeling celebrated, a quiet ache stirred in my chest—a heaviness unnamed but deeply familiar.

Looking around the table, I saw the ones who have shared me with strangers over the years. My children, who learned too early that Baba might not always be there; my parents, aging steadily while I charted progress notes for other people’s mothers and fathers. I wondered: How many moments had I missed? How many birthdays, conversations, and simple, irreplaceable days could have become extraordinary—if only I had been present?

Medicine took me away—not once, not for a season, but again and again. It never felt like a gentle decision, but rather like a current—strong, relentless, impossible to resist. People call it a calling, a noble path; perhaps it is. But beneath the surface, it’s something more—a silent contract demanding more than knowledge or skill. It asks for time without apology, presence without pause, taking youth in quiet increments, relationships in fragments, stillness almost entirely. Medicine didn’t just shape my life—it consumed it. And though I stood in service, often with pride—I cannot deny, it took everything.

While others built homes and collected memories, I buried myself in textbooks and call duties. While friends traveled, I memorized pharmacokinetics. While families laughed under warm lights, I stood beneath harsh ones—in casualty rooms, cath labs, and ICUs—where someone else’s crisis became mine. The world outside moved on but my world was measured in heartbeats, in........

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