Reflections of a Millennial Filipino GP on hospital shifts, patient care, and the quiet victories often unseen.

What happens when a life depends on your shift?

What does it feel like to drive to work knowing someone’s life might hang on your decisions?

Inside a 24-Hour Doctor’s Shift

We doctors begin our day much like anyone else—wake up, take a shower, have breakfast, maybe listen to music on the way to work.

But the moment we clock in, we step into a world where every life, every worry, and every tiny victory becomes ours to carry. Hospital shifts are more than hours—they are emotional journeys, where laughter, grief, hope, and fear intertwine, and where the invisible weight of caring for patients quietly follows us through every step.

For us, a “shift” doesn’t mean eight hours—it could be 24 straight, sometimes even 48. Perhaps that’s why they call us residents-on-duty—because in many ways, we don’t just work in the hospital, we live there.

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The Emotional Roller Coaster of Being a Doctor

Within those long hours, we ride an emotional roller coaster. In one shift, I can go from lighthearted jokes with colleagues… to the joy of hearing a newborn cry… to calming a mother in labor… to facing patients with conditions so complicated we call them “toxic.” In just a few hours, I witness laughter, grief, relief, fear, despair, and hope—all under one roof.

And at the center of it all? Us doctors. We learn to carry these emotions, to compartmentalize them, because if we didn’t, the weight would crush us. This isn’t something taught in med school—it’s something only time, patients, and experience can teach you.

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Facing Fear and Insecurity

I remember my first “toxic” patient. He was already at death’s door—nakalibing na ang isang paa sa hukay, as we say. I couldn’t stop thinking: “Please don’t die on me. Please… just hold on.” That one thought has haunted me in every shift since.

Even behind our confident smiles, there’s always a small voice whispering:
“Am I enough?”
“Can I really save this person?”
“What if I fail?”

Yes, even doctors get scared.

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The Invisible Side of Medicine

I remember once trying to comfort a wife whose husband was critically ill. I told her jokingly, “Don’t be scared. Start being scared only when we doctors get scared.” But the truth? Even as I said those words, I was silently asking myself: “Should I be scared right now?”

What many patients don’t realize is this: when they come to us bearing the weight of their disease, we quietly carry that weight too. We wrestle with it, fight it, and do everything we can to ease their burden—so that, one day, their lives can be better.

This is the invisible side of medicine: the part where we don’t just prescribe or operate, but actually carry someone else’s suffering for them.

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Small Wins Matter

There are moments when fate reminds us—“You’re only human. You cannot save them all.” Ten years into this profession, I’ve learned that no matter how hard you fight, no matter how many times you tumble and give everything you’ve got, you simply cannot save everyone. We are not gods.

But here’s the hope:
The small wins matter.
The patient who gets discharged walking on their own two feet. The newborn who goes home with their mother. The family that no longer visits the ward because their loved one is well enough to stay home.

These moments—quiet victories—are the ones we hold on to. They remind us why we endure sleepless nights, endless charts, and the heavy burden of fear and doubt.

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A Doctor’s Quiet Burden

Because in the end, even if I cannot save them all, I can save someone.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

Behind the prescriptions, the white coat, and the steady hands… is a doctor who quietly worries—carrying every life entrusted to them, because every patient matters, even when no one sees it.