I am a former vascular surgeon, and I left the field in 2020 at the height of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to burnout. And though I had not been well for some years, I was able to find myself again and rediscover my passion for music. In the end, my health and my family became my priority, so currently I work in a more stable outpatient clinical setting.
I started writing the song “Hospital” about a patient I had taken care of some years ago. He started his treatment well, but had suddenly disappeared for several weeks. He scheduled a visit some time later and confided that he had been admitted to the hospital for threatening to harm himself. He eventually recovered, but lost his family and job in the process. But he came back because he was ready to get better, and that was inspiring.
I wrote some lyrics about seeing him again, and what he had told me about his attempt to harm himself. But I felt uneasy singing those words, because it meant that I would have to discuss my own thoughts and experiences about self-harm too, and I was not ready to do that. But I was able to write this song, and a few after it that explore some of those ideas and feelings, and it has really helped me get better. And sometimes, still, I do not feel ready to talk about these things, but I am sharing this song anyway, because music has always been therapy for me. I hope it can be for others, too.
But that song was not ultimately about that particular patient. In the end, I wrote about a patient that we have all taken care of: the mother, who cares for everyone, but dies because bad things always seem to happen to the nicest patients.
In the bridge to the song, I was able to explore a little more about the idea of self-harm and the darkness we all face as medical practitioners. I like to think of that bridge as a “doctor’s prayer” of sorts, like encouraging words to say before we head back to the hospital, to battle in vain against the death that eventually comes for us all.
Hospital
Words and Music by Moses Kim
I saw the knife and I pulled it out the side
Her blood was cold but I fixed what I could find
When I laid down someone else was next in line
This on and on has me falling every time
Fall into the places you forgot before
Dare to lose everything you’ve held on for
You will fear what isn’t really here anymore
Isn’t here anymore
Isn’t here anymore
She was a mom who worked many jobs and times
She only saw her little ones asleep at night
She was too kind that’s why they die every time
This on and on has me falling every time
Fall into the places you forgot before
Dare to lose everything you’ve held on for
You will fear what isn’t really here anymore
Isn’t here anymore
Isn’t here anymore
Bless this truth in every shade
That’s mine alone to make the braid
That twists around this tired nape
And to the dark that knows my face
Into the dark that knows I’m game
To take a leap against the grain
To fall unseen for lives in pain
To stand between your life in vain
So I sit listening to every word
As we have shared every burden once returned
I fall into places I forgot before
See you there when we meet beyond the door
Moses Kim is a vascular surgeon.
