Current transgenerational dynamics: a story experienced from the perspective of the sandwich generation.

Abstract

Medical training transmits, alongside technical knowledge, a historical-cultural burden that links the practice of the profession to the idea of sacrifice. This paper examines how the archetype of the physician-martyr, reinforced by the hidden curriculum of medical education, contributes to normalising demanding working conditions under the guise of vocation, and situates this phenomenon within a broader framework of learned helplessness. A generational rupture is also analysed, between veteran physicians, shaped by mystical obligation, and younger physicians who increasingly question this framework — briefly introducing the concepts of the "Hired Hero" and the "Fallacy of the Infallible Saviour" to describe this dynamic. Recent evidence is incorporated on identification with the aggressor, impostor syndrome, and a deficit in pedagogical training among clinical tutors, mechanisms that may perpetuate generational estrangement regardless of the age of those who sustain them. The paper also acknowledges the qualities that the younger generation brings to the profession, and proposes that unacknowledged ignorance — both that of the veteran who has stopped questioning and that of the resident who needs to feign confidence — is a common cause of friction. It concludes with a proposal for an alliance of mutual care between generations, developed through the author's own situated reflection on her intermediate generational position.