Why do you want to be a doctor?

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Career day at my daughter’s school in London is cheaper than therapy. I recount my life story to teenagers who listen intently—some even take notes. Succumbing to temptation I soup it up a bit (don’t we all?). Hitchhiking across Alaska in the summer while visiting native health services goes down well, as do my Bosnian war exploits, and the bizarre late night cases as a junior doctor in Dublin. Even though I remind them that 80% of any job is routine, even boring, they go away convinced they have met the female, public health version of Dr House.

A well known thoracic surgeon and a feisty endocrinologist sit opposite. Students flock round as these experts fire off pertinent career advice. Non-stop for four hours and they are still enthusiastic and fun over lunch, swapping stories about “their” services, and devious ways to circumvent bizarre management diktats. The endocrinologist once threatened to take four weeks sick leave—to rest her plantar fasciitis—unless her outpatient clinic was immediately fully stocked with sample bottles and the full range of laboratory forms. The surgeon had manoeuvred his NHS trust to double his patient numbers in five years. In another health system all that passion would be directed elsewhere, and both would be in demand and richer. Capturing the collective will to work for the common good is perhaps the greatest achievement of the NHS. Thank goodness that spirit survives.

Efforts in the United Kingdom to widen the base of applicants to medical school are having an effect. I speak more often with students who have no medical relatives or who are the first in their family to apply to university. As interviews approach, a deep insecurity may surface as they lack reference points and wonder if they are good enough. Last night I told a nervous interviewee from such a family that she is already good enough—she is smart, well educated, and in the top 1% of women in the world, whether she gets into Cambridge or not. I find it useful to reflect that my mother’s generation was the first to attend medical school, and my husband’s grandparents were illiterate. As I listen to teenagers now, I feel their expectations are incredibly high—and that failure on those terms is frighteningly easy.

The journey to exchanging rapid fire, informed banter with my senior medical peers appeared endless when I started out. I say a silent thank you for my own years of hard work, my supportive family and mentors, and an awful lot of luck.

Best of all, my daughter reported back that her peers think I am the “coolest” mother.