Doctors spend their 20s and 30s studying while most of their friends are at parties and enjoying their youth.

Doctors may amass up to $500,000 in debt for the honor of one day caring for you and your family.

Doctors delay childbearing and starting their own families so they can care for your family.

Doctors miss their own kids’ ballet recitals and baseball games so they can care for your kids and family.

Doctors get out of bed and leave their husbands and wives in the middle of the night to care for your sick husband or wife.

Doctors — while “off-duty” and “on vacation” — may save your life on an airplane, in a swimming pool, shopping mall, or car accident.

Doctor suffer with you. They carry your pain home with them.

Doctors may be hazed, bullied, and abused by professors, patients, employers, insurance companies, politicians, and the media, but the keep caring for you and your family.

Doctors are commonly sleep deprived and exhausted. They skip meals and bathroom breaks so they can keep caring for all the people like you and your family who need them.

Doctoring is not a 9 to 5 job. Your doctor may still be thinking about you and your illness while trying to fall asleep at night.

Doctors have PTSD from decades of witnessing trauma.

Doctors have the highest rate of suicide of any profession.

Today, tell your doctor, “I love you.”

The life you save may save you.

Pamela Wible pioneered the community-designed ideal medical clinic and blogs at Ideal Medical Care. She is the author of Pet Goats and Pap Smears. Watch her TEDx talk, How to Get Naked with Your Doctor. 

Image credit: Shutterstock.com