"A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this, get out of the profession"

Martin H. Fischer’s assertion about the demands placed upon doctors speaks to the extraordinary level of commitment, endurance, and self-sacrifice expected within the medical profession. Implied in his words is a warning: medicine is not a career for those seeking an easy path or hoping to maintain rigid boundaries between personal and professional lives. The eighteen-hour workdays and seven-day workweeks illustrate not just a practical expectation but a metaphor for absolute dedication. To practice medicine adequately is to admit that others’ wellbeing will often take precedence over personal comforts, social engagements, and even one’s own health.

Fischer’s perspective underscores the idea that medicine is more than a job; it is a vocation. Society entrusts doctors with lives, and that trust necessitates unparalleled commitment. In painting such an extreme picture of the physician’s workload, Fischer both highlights the sacrifices made by doctors and implicitly calls for only those with genuine passion and resilience to enter the field. Anything less, he suggests, might not be enough to meet the ethical and practical demands required to truly serve patients.

This degree of dedication is not without consequences or controversy. Fischer’s view may reflect an older paradigm, one rooted in the belief that near-superhuman endurance is both necessary and virtuous. Modern debates address growing concern over physician burnout, mental health, and work-life balance, questioning whether this level of sacrifice is sustainable, wise, or fair. Nevertheless, the underlying principle, that the profession demands more than most others, and that entering it requires clear-eyed acceptance of these sacrifices, remains deeply influential. Fischer’s words continue to resonate, challenging aspiring doctors to examine their motivations, assess their fortitude, and commit fully if they are to pursue the sacred responsibilities of medicine.