I took call in December. Each year, there seems to be a patient so sick that he
or she requires admission for dermatologic care over the holiday.

I’m not complaining, though. As a dermatologist, call comes a month at a time and the holiday season is, by far, my favorite time to volunteer. One of the reasons is that it feels good taking a slot no one else wants. Most people want to be with their friends and families over the Christmas holiday and, not being a Christian, taking call in December is a calling I look forward to.

But the best part of taking call in December is caring for that truly ill patient who needs to be in the hospital over the holiday. There is absolutely nothing more uplifting or spiritual for me than caring for a suffering skin disease patient — someone no one else wants to care for — over the biggest holiday of the year.

For some people, the holidays mean spending time with family, traveling or giving and receiving gifts. But for others, there’s a more spiritual undertone to this season. While medicine is always a high calling, the spirituality of medicine often gets lost within the frenetic pace at which it takes place the other 360 or so days a year. But during the holidays, things slow down dramatically. The
hospital is nearly empty. Quiet and subdued, it is filled with spirit. Walking the empty corridors and wards, one feels the quiet spirit of an empty house of worship. The quiet gives time to reflect on the profundity of our work — unencumbered by charts to sign, e-mails to answer, or the constant cacophony of interpersonal interactions that make up the normal medical day.

Feeling the spirit of medicine, I can understand how someone could leave behind worldly pursuits and focus his or her life on a divine purpose such as becoming a missionary. Or taking a pilgrimage. Or missing dinner with the kids again to take care of that patient in need.

Medicine offers so many gifts. Over the holidays, it’s easy to remember them. Now that we’re back to the pre-holiday pace, I hope the spirit stays with me the rest of the year.

Steven R. Feldman, M.D., Ph.D.