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I probably always think whatever job I'm in is the most difficult, and I'm saying this after doing all sorts of things in the military including inspecting dead bodies for contract compliance with funeral homes, but... the present one is certainly more physically, emotionally, and psychically challenging than I've had for a while.
I'm a physical therapist in an acute care hospital. I have to have the brains to be able to switch gears from one type of malady to another (cancer, spinal cord injury, dementia, hip fracture, joint replacement, pancreatitis, and so forth) every few minutes; the iron stomach to be able to clean up poop, urine, vomit, blood, pus, or whatever other fluids happen to fall out of a body while trying to perform therapy; the psychological strength to be gentle and caring with a patient dying of cancer, to be firm and clear to a patient with dementia who tries to claw me or bite me while I'm trying to help her, to be supportive and enthusiastic to help another do exercises that are very painful, and so forth. I have to have the physical strength to lift people weighing up to several hundred pounds, often without help, sometimes with the patient trying to also carry the wheelchair along. I have to have the wits and the alertness to catch people before they faint or find a receptacle before they vomit on me. And I have to have the emotional strength to deal with the downright nasty patient, the dying patient, the other staff, the paperwork, the insurance companies, and the bosses who just ain't in the trenches. So, right now, I think this is the most difficult job I've ever done. Am I really helping people? I don't know.
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