This blog post explores how Pauline Chen, a woman and Asian who pursued the path of a surgeon, achieved a balance between success and family life.
I happened to read a book about the lives of surgeons. The book I read was Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality, written by Pauline Chen. This book goes beyond simply conveying medical knowledge; it contains profound reflections on life and death encountered in a surgeon’s life, inspiring many medical students and healthcare professionals.
Pauline Chen possesses an academic background so impressive that anyone would consider her extraordinary. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and graduated from Feinberg School of Medicine, part of Northwestern University in Chicago. After completing her surgical training at Yale University Hospital, she has continued her career as a specialist in liver transplantation and liver cancer, not only in the United States but globally. Her career is literally flawless, and her achievements are highly regarded within the medical community.
However, it’s not just her impressive credentials that earn Pauline Chen widespread praise. What many admire and hold up as a role model is her success as a woman and an Asian in American society, where white people still hold a dominant position. While women’s status in our society today has advanced considerably, this is only relative to the past; society still revolves around male-centric norms. Especially in fields like surgery, which demand both physical and mental stamina, rising to the top as a woman is even more challenging. Despite this, Pauline Chen has overcome these limitations and achieved excellence in her field.
Any medical student has likely pondered their future position and role at least once. Female doctors not only carry the demanding profession of medicine, which requires constant sacrifice to care for patients, but also take on the additional role of ‘mother’ at home. No matter how much ‘multitasking’ ability is needed, perfectly balancing both roles is never easy. In this regard, Pauline Chen, as the mother of twin daughters, has excelled at harmonizing her career and family life, serving as an excellent role model for many female medical students.
Moreover, she demonstrated not only exceptional surgical skill but also the essential personal virtues a physician should possess and deep empathy for her patients. In her book, Pauline Chen states that while doctors are in the business of life, in reality, they encounter death more frequently than life. Surgeons, in particular, are deeply involved not only in saving patients’ lives but also in accompanying them through their final moments. She argued that through this process, doctors must recognize the dignity of life and strive tirelessly to uphold its value.
Pauline Chen particularly emphasizes that the dignity of life must be learned starting from anatomy practice. She states that medical students performing cadaver dissections should cultivate a sense of gratitude toward those who donated their bodies. This is not merely an educational opportunity; it should be a process of expressing deep respect for those who contributed to learning and advancing medicine through the human body. After reading this book, I too came to understand Chen’s words through anatomy lab. Facing the body lying before me during dissection, I initially felt uneasy, but within that discomfort, I came to feel the value of life and the responsibility it entails even more deeply.
Chen’s experiences themselves taught me much, and the moments she personally shared with patients left a particularly deep impression. In her book, she details the myriad challenges surgeons face and the profound responsibility toward patients. Among these, the most moving episode recounts an incident during her pregnancy when a patient experienced hemorrhage during surgery. Despite the bleeding threatening her unborn child’s life, Chen prioritized the life of the patient on the operating table. She only received treatment after saving the patient’s life, and fortunately, both she and her twin daughters survived. This incident exemplifies her profound sense of responsibility and passion as a physician.
Through Pauline Chen, we realize that the medical profession cannot be fulfilled by technical skill alone. She possesses such a profound spirit of sacrifice that she prioritized her patient’s life over her own, embodying the true essence of a physician. She has become a role model for countless female medical students and young doctors not merely because of her success story, but because of her human warmth and the dedicated physician she became through that compassion.
Succeeding as an Asian woman in the United States is never easy. Yet Chen’s story demonstrates that with relentless effort and passion, anyone can become a true physician dedicated to their patients. She teaches future doctors not merely medical techniques, but the dignity of life and the responsibility toward patients. Pauline Chen reminds us of the true definition of a physician, and there is no doubt she embodies that very essence.
