THIS IS TALL ORDER

It's TBR10.

Doc Joey wants us to share our ideas about our families. Read Joey's questions and you get it. There's something about the doc's family that reminds me of the military family.

But now, if you will excuse me this early, I concede that the family is one of my greatest weaknesses (umm along with chocolates and Jessica Alba).


I don't have a family of my own, that's why.


That's beside the point. The mere mention of the family touches off a storm in my very personal set of traditional dysfunctional family values. You know, I hold dear my traditions, man. (I mean, whether it's the respect for elders, the awful jeepney or vote-buying, we simply don't let go of tradition, right?)

Therefore, I don't have the psychic cherries to cherish and discuss the family on a very personal level. Perhaps, my strategy is to paraphrase Wikipedia or to massively hyperlink to Megamom's blog.

So let's not talk about my family.

Really now, what is it about the doctor's family, anyway? If I go TBR8 on your asses, does the doctor's family practice what the doc preaches? Hehehe.

The doc's family (the one he or she started) is remarkable in the sense that the doctor is the ultimate busy professional -- maybe only rivaled by the President of the USA and being on the battlefront.

So, I ask: Does the doctor spend quality time with his/her family?

Of this, I'm sure. S/he makes quality time possible for other families.

Some doctors I know, particularly obstetricians, are so busy that when I stare at their wrists, I can be forgiven for guessing that their idea of quality time is a Rado wristwatch or a Brequet, kindof. You get the idea.

Now, lowly mortals I know (e.g., non-doctors) rant and rave about multitasking in the workplace.

Oh shut up. Doctors do something a hundred notches more rant-and-rave-worthy -- something I'd call infinite tasking. It's like violating the laws of physics (being at points A and B at once), in which the family is at risk of being relegated to just one of the tasks (point A being the family and point B being T. Morato, for example). That's why I mentioned earlier the similarity between the doctor's family and the military family.

That generalization is unfair, however.

It could be way, way worse. A doctor may be busy (e.g., lacking) not only in terms of time but in terms of other resources as well, namely, money and spirituality. (Sometimes, I wonder how doctors have families and nice cars on some crappy residency training salary (PhP 8000/mo.). Voila, most of them are still on parental support; their original families own hospitals, businesses.)

Or it could be far better. As I said in TBR8, doctors are imperfect creatures. And yet, the least that we could do is to prioritize whatever we want to prioritize. I'd like to think that it is the doctor's instinct to prioritize (read: triage --> to party or to be home w/ family?). This despite the infinite tasking at hand.

Prioritization as a doctor's skill reaches its acme (naks, whatta term) in Megamom's decision to prioritize her megafamily over pediatric practice. Her blog abounds in snippets of the family life.

To Ma'am Megamom, don't worry. I'm not flattering you. The way I read your blog is the way a movie fan watches Titanic. The fan is in a boring world, longing for some form of escapism. Hehehe.

PS2. I'm single (it's complicated (tm)). A product of circumstances, it's really a boring+exciting life. But who says single-blessedness isn't also written in the stars? It's romantic. But God forbid it's deceptively so.