Brooke Buckley `94: Changing lives

\"It`s uncanny how close +óGé¼-£Grey`s Anatomy` [the hit ABC drama] is to my life,\" laughed Brooke Buckley `94, a general surgery resident. "The people aren`t as beautiful, and the locker rooms aren`t co-ed, but the humor, the emotions that they try to deal with in that show are very much like our daily life. It`s a constant roller coaster of being afraid that you`re not good enough, of trying so hard to learn everything you can, trying to do everything you can for people and never knowing if you`ve done enough..." There is one difference, though. The doctors of Seattle Grace Hospital are actors who leave their characters` trials on a television set come the end of a day`s taping. Buckley can`t; hers are a constant companion. "There are times-usually [when you`re working] at three in the morning-when you just think to yourself, +óGé¼-£why on Earth am I doing this? I could be a stockbroker, a lawyer, in sales...I could be at home with my family or, at the very least, sleeping somewhere.` And you have to believe that there is some higher reason that you`re doing all this or I don`t think you could continue getting up in the morning to do it," she said. In her fifth, and final, year of residency at Fairview Hospital on Cleveland`s west side, Buckley does continue to wake up each morning and head to work, even if, at times, she questions her sanity. She`s one who understands that what she does is more than a job, or even a career for that matter. Forget the paycheck. Forget the perceived glamour (there`s not much, if at all). Being a doctor is a life mission. "More important than [having] intelligence [to be a doctor] is dedication and...a conviction to do what`s right even in the face of the majority of incentives being against what the best interest of your patients would be," she said. "[Doctors must possess] the conviction to continue down a road that`s very difficult [and] the dedication to give up so much for your profession, knowing that the financial incentives aren`t what they are in other [professional] fields." Buckley`s sacrifices and challenges have proved to be far greater than she could have imagined as a wide-eyed medical student. Did she know she was in store for 24-30 hour workdays? Did she anticipate the threat of lawsuits from patients who were unhappy even after she had done the best she could? It`s not likely, but even though she`s faced a considerable amount of challenges, she wouldn`t have it any other way. What really matters is seeing a person on the verge of dying eventually walk out the hospital to live life. What really matters is the fact that Buckley gets to change lives. "It`s a pretty amazing thing," she said. And she can take that with her every day of her life.