One of my ER doctor colleagues sent this out yesterday and it had reminiscing about my ER Residency. Though I was not at LA County, I was also at an inner city hospital and the images and message resonate even with my current job. The doctors I work with provide me with endless inspiration. My colleague Claire spent a month last year in Syria working with Doctors Without Borders providing medical support to the besieged civilian population. Her story of sneaking across the border through a hole in a barbed wire fence is unreal. Hernando, another colleague is the head of Kaiser’s International Relief efforts and was one of the first on the scene with FEMA at the Oklahoma City bombing and at the World Trade Center on 9/11. My colleagues Manny, Brian and Jeff have all served in Iraq and Afghanistan as doctor reservists over the last several years. It would takes pages and pages to detail all the community clinics, international medical relief and other amazing work collectively the rest have done in addition to the rigorous day to day demands of our regular job. So no, this post is not much about crafting (although for me it certainly is a nice counterbalance to my job), these people inspire me every day.
Entropy Always Wins 
I work in the charity sector for a design agency. I’ve worked with Doctors Without Borders in the past to produce fundraising materials. The work this charity (and numerous others) does is unbelievable. The medical staff who are out in the field are real heroes – the risks they take to save lives and the difficulties they face to do their job is truly unreal. As I’m making yet another quilt, I question what it’s for, what am I achieving by making this, who am I helping? The ‘difficulties’ of selecting the correct fabric for a project seems so trivial in the grand scale of things. I try to remind myself that quilt making is for my own sanity, a contrast to the images I look at every day – children dying of malaria, dancing bears that need to be rescued, refugees with nothing, wounded soldiers trying to deal with PTSD – it’s a counterbalance to the job as you said but I still can’t help feeling it’s pretty pointless sometimes!
Everything can feel trivial compared to the tragedy in the world. We are lucky to have respite from it as others obviously can’t. I believe that working with our hands is healing to our psyches. So Rebecca, keep up the good work, both with your job and sewing machine. Blessings.
Hillary
I am so very glad I live in the world of modern medicine … and plumbing.
Me too!