Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

Doctors, parents, and spouses all rolled up into one person

Wendi Kitsteiner
Physician
September 30, 2015
Share
Tweet
Share

As my husband’s pick-up truck rolls up the driveway, a long ER shift behind him, my four kids come running from wherever they are currently playing on our farm. My seven-year-old son was reading in a rocker on the front porch. His six-year-old brother was watching the new baby chicks scramble around our brooder. My four-year-old daughter was helping feed our ducks. And my two year old was getting into who knows what.

But when daddy’s truck pulls up our long driveway, they all stop whatever they are doing and come running.

He emerges from “Sunshine” (as we affectionately call the twenty-year-old F-250 he purchased when we bought this farm) in his black scrubs and immediately scoops up one or more children into his arms at the same time. What follows is a series of conversations and wrestling — catching up on what has been going on in our lives during the twelve hours he has been away, and if there is nothing to talk about — tickling them instead.

As I watch him kissing our daughter, playing rock-paper-scissors with a son, checking out my little one’s drawings, and listening to another’s story, I think how amazing it is what he does. How he transitions, so seamlessly between two completely different lives.

He walks over and hugs me, asks me about my day, listens as I lament some burnt food or bad behavior or a lost stuffed animal.

And he listens like it matters.

And it does, of course.

But I often can’t help but wonder how my husband so easily shifts from things that really matter to things that really don’t.

When the homecoming party starts dying down and the kids, satisfied with their Daddy time return to what they were doing before he pulled up, we sit down on the porch and he begins to unveil the shift he had just encountered.

I ask him not to tell me everything. If there is something that is very sad, and he doesn’t need to get it off his chest, I ask him not to tell me. To only give me what he needs for me to hear. I can’t handle it. It keeps me up at night.

I wonder how it doesn’t do the same to him.

And while no names or details are exchanged, I get enough information to realize that my husband was faced with numerous life and death experiences during his hours in the hospital last night. He came within minutes of losing a man to a heart attack. And he had to tell a wife that her husband did not make it. He met an autistic boy and managed to administer care without having to sedate him. Another patient, not in their right mind, reeked havoc on the floor before security was called in to help deal with the situation.

And here I am asking him if he could please take out the trash before I lose my mind! Can you get her markers down from the cabinet? Will you read the baby a book? Why didn’t you brush their teeth before bed?

My husband does it. He does his job and then leaves it. It’s one of the reasons he chose emergency medicine. Once he gets in his truck at the end of a shift, his phone doesn’t ring again. No one asks him about a patient. He doesn’t get any calls requiring him to return to work. And he walks into our home and takes off his scrubs and puts his stethoscope in his bag and becomes just a husband and a father and a farmer — as if he didn’t just save a life and lose a life the night before.

ADVERTISEMENT

He walks through our kitchen door and is expected to completely shift gears. He is expected to put aside the horrors and miracles of what he just experienced and shift into the mundane wonderful aspects of “normal” life.

There are many noble professions. However, I find it difficult to believe many rival this one. I truly feel like my husband is given the incredible privilege and pressure of being with people during the most wonderful and difficult moments of their life. They are giving him permission to be a part of their most personal and sensitive and intimate moments. And he is handling those moments with skill and grace and kindness and care and then putting those moments aside to come home to us and pretend like my problems are real ones.

Being married to a doctor has changed how I see these amazing men and women. These are people who are straddling two unrelated worlds without hesitation.

They are saving lives and changing diapers.

They are stitching up wounds and taking out the trash.

They are doctors and parents and spouses all rolled up into one person.

And I, for one, want to say I’m impressed.

And thankful.

Wendi Kitsteiner can be reached at her self-titled site, Wendi Kitsteiner.

Prev

Is that bad? A difficult question doctors can answer in many ways.

September 29, 2015 Kevin 5
…
Next

Don’t try to be your child’s friend. Here's why.

September 30, 2015 Kevin 1
…

Tagged as: Emergency Medicine

Post navigation

< Previous Post
Is that bad? A difficult question doctors can answer in many ways.
Next Post >
Don’t try to be your child’s friend. Here's why.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Wendi Kitsteiner

  • Our little family in Tennessee does COVID

    Wendi Kitsteiner
  • Before you vent about your doctor on social media, read this

    Wendi Kitsteiner
  • Humanize your physician: They are real people

    Wendi Kitsteiner

Related Posts

  • One person’s wasteful medical spending is another person’s income

    Edward Hoffer, MD
  • Why do doctors who hate being doctors still practice?

    Kristin Puhl, MD
  • Doctors: It’s time to unionize

    Thomas D. Guastavino, MD
  • Doctors die. But the good ones leave a legacy.

    Jaime B. Gerber, MD
  • A medical student’s letter to her parents

    Hillary McKinley
  • The value of in-person feedback

    Micaela Stevenson

More in Physician

  • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

    Jessie Mahoney, MD
  • How a $75 million jet brought down America’s boldest doctor

    Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA
  • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

    Pamela Adelstein, MD
  • When rock bottom is a turning point: Why the turmoil at HHS may be a blessing in disguise

    Muhamad Aly Rifai, MD
  • How grief transformed a psychiatrist’s approach to patient care

    Devina Maya Wadhwa, MD
  • Fear of other people’s opinions nearly killed me. Here’s what freed me.

    Jillian Rigert, MD, DMD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • The hidden cost of delaying back surgery

      Gbolahan Okubadejo, MD | Conditions
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Alzheimer’s and the family: Opening the conversation with children [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • AI in mental health: a new frontier for therapy and support

      Tim Rubin, PsyD | Conditions
    • What prostate cancer taught this physician about being a patient

      Francisco M. Torres, MD | Conditions
    • Why fearing AI is really about fearing ourselves

      Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA | Tech
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • Why great patient outcomes don’t protect female doctors from burnout [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 7 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • The hidden cost of delaying back surgery

      Gbolahan Okubadejo, MD | Conditions
    • The dreaded question: Do you have boys or girls?

      Pamela Adelstein, MD | Physician
    • Rethinking patient payments: Why billing is the new frontline of patient care [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors

      Kayvan Haddadan, MD | Physician
    • What happened to real care in health care?

      Christopher H. Foster, PhD, MPA | Policy
    • Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting

      American College of Physicians | Physician
    • The hidden bias in how we treat chronic pain

      Richard A. Lawhern, PhD | Meds
    • Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

      Anonymous | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Alzheimer’s and the family: Opening the conversation with children [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • AI in mental health: a new frontier for therapy and support

      Tim Rubin, PsyD | Conditions
    • What prostate cancer taught this physician about being a patient

      Francisco M. Torres, MD | Conditions
    • Why fearing AI is really about fearing ourselves

      Bhargav Raman, MD, MBA | Tech
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
    • Why great patient outcomes don’t protect female doctors from burnout [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Doctors, parents, and spouses all rolled up into one person
7 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...