He is now 72 years old and is working at a prefectural hospital as a psychiatrist in Iwate Prefecture a few hundred km north of here. He has been the only brother whom I have been proud of since his young days. Intellectual, affectionate to family members, others and possibly to his patients as well.
He repeatedly complained that he had felt deeply tired while working at the hospital of late. At first, I thought he had been stressed at his plan of retirement in next September. Yes, he has finally decided to retire. I asked him if I guessed it right. He answered no. He has been burdened with the patients' worries and anxieties. Psychiatric patients are often in hardship in life and poverty in the community in addition to the problems pertinent to their illnesses like delusions and/or illusions etc. Psychiatrists try to understand what they think of and to keep distance from it as well at the same time.
In my brother's case, since he has been too compassionate others including his patients, he could not stop being devoted to them wholeheartedly. It is a kind of drawback as a psychiatrist. He should do with it, a natural character for him. Even an ordinary person may experience to the same kind of being burdened by those psychiatric patients.
I would have majored in psychiatry when I decided to become a doctor. One reason was that I was influenced by works of V.E. Frankle, Karl Jaspers and so forth those days. I have acquainted with a family with several psychiatric patients as well and innocence of youth has made me feel I would be of help to those people. But in the faculty, the bed side training in pediatrics has lured me to working as a pediatrician as the patients were so lovely and a lot of them could recover quickly when given proper treatments.
I don't really know what has lead my brother to his profession. Since he has not changed his speciality and is going to end his career as a psychiatrist, he might have felt it was worth working for those patients. If I am allowed to say, he has been crucified with his profession while he felt that worthiness.
It won't last forever but will end in next September. I hope he will get it through by any means. I thought I could have been in his position if I chose psychiatry. Hearty gratitude and cheers to psychiatrists struggling in their profession indispensible in the society!
