Monthly Archives: November 2017

You Can’t Pee!

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NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine

When my son was little we lived in an apartment where the kitchen was a separate room, with only a small window through which I could see what he was doing in the living room while I cooked.  Once when he was about five months old, I looked out and he was lying on the mat in the middle of the floor, playing happily with the toys dangling from arches overhead.  I swear I only turned around for a minute, and when I looked back he was gone.  Empty mat, toys still dangling, no kid, no sounds.  I can’t remember what I was doing, but it felt like a slow motion eternity getting out of that damn kitchen to find him.  Something heavy must have fallen on him or he was otherwise suffocating or dying, for sure.  …He had just learned to roll over, and he had rolled and rolled and rolled himself into the space under the air conditioning unit near the window.  He was turning over a dried jasmine leaf he’d found on the floor.  Not long after that I decided I had to buy food preparation gloves.  Just in case my kid needed me anytime I was handling raw meat, this would save me the infinitude of time it would take to wash my hands—I could just pull the gloves off and bolt!  Because you know, 30 seconds could mean life or death for a toddler in his own living room.

Please laugh—I did today when I told the story to a friend.  It came up as we explored the phenomenon of moms putting everything for their kids before themselves.  We compared notes on how long we had ever held our urine.  What mom has not done this?  You can’t pee!  Because you never know which minute you’re not with your children will be the one during which your neglect will kill them.  Thankfully children grow and become more independent, and we can free our bladders again eventually.

It’s not just moms, though.  One of my teachers in the hospital gave herself a urinary tract infection as a resident.  She had so much to do every day, so many patients who needed her that she felt guilty taking time to pee.  I did the same thing in clinic for many years.  I could not justify making patients wait another minute when I was already 15 (usually more) minutes late seeing them. I don’t do this anymore.  In a fit of efficiency last week, I stepped into the restroom after I set my lunch to microwave for 2:00.  It literally takes only a minute to pee.  I don’t usually run late these days, but even if do, now take care of my needs first.  It’s better for me, and better for my patients, whose doctor is not distracted by preventable physical discomfort and dying to end the interview or exam to get some relief.

Our culture still expects moms, doctors, nurses, teachers, and many others to sacrifice selflessly in service of our charges.  UTIs are the least important consequence.  Over 50% of physicians in the US report at least one symptom of burnout, and 400 doctors kill themselves annually.  That is the equivalent of my entire medical school, dead, every year.  It’s not all because of the job, but the obligatory selfless-giver mentality in medicine definitely contributes.

So whatever helping profession you are in, please take time to take care of yourself.  We need you whole and healthy to take care of the rest of us and our children.

Go pee.  I will wait.

Conscience and Ego?

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NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine

I’m so grateful for my many friends who make a daily practice of examining and reflecting on feelings, behavior, and meaning.  We see each other often and trade stories of enlightening, demoralizing, enraging, moving, curious, inspiring, dismaying, confusing, validating, and human experiences.  Tonight one of them texted me about a conversation with a fellow cosmic journeyer: “Wise Friend told me that when he’s really wrong is when he’s the most defensive and I thought about it and it’s true for me, too.”

It didn’t take me long to relate viscerally to this message.  I tried reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford some years ago.  It’s all about facing our specific areas of self-loathing and overcoming them with I don’t know what.  Because while I usually take pride in my ability to explore my insides and be with the ugly, I could not make it through that book.  When I got to the comprehensive self-loathing-identification exercise, I had to stop, and my subconscious gnarled such that I picked a fight with the husband that lasted two weeks.  I like to think that I have evolved since then, that my inner life is slightly less gnarly these days. I now choose to work through my self-loathing one small piece at a time, in small doses with my therapist, on and off.

I texted back tonight from my gut, “I think it’s true for all of us, most defensive when most wrong.  Our consciences know better than our egos.”  It was one of those unguarded moments that allows for a new (for me) expression for an old concept.  And now I have a new idea to consider: how do conscience and ego interact, and what are the products of their collaboration and/or competition?  More importantly, how does the interaction (entanglement?) show up in our relationships?  Marriage, parenting, friendship, physician-patient?  How can we manage these relationships optimally through exploring this mental/emotional interplay?  Maybe I’m overthinking…  If it’s mostly true that our consciences know better than our egos, then maybe I can just continue practicing awareness of Ego’s tendency to bully Conscience, and training Conscience to peacefully and firmly Resist.

 

 

Hopey, Changey Hero Making

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IVY Litt 11-8-17

NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine, Day 8

Funny how I just wrote last night about connecting new dots to old dots.  It just happened again tonight!  A couple of weeks ago I responded to an online ad for an IVY Ideas Night with David Litt, author of Thanks Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years, entitled, “How to Inspire, Persuade, and Entertain.”  Litt was a senior speechwriter for President Obama, so I thought I could learn new tips for presentations, and feel a little closer to the president whom I miss so much.

I’ve done public speaking since eighth grade, when our speech teacher first taught us abdominal breathing and I discovered the thrill of holding the attention of a room full of people with only my words.  I work at an academic medical center and I hold zero publications, but my CV documents over 10 years of professional presentations to various audiences.  I thought I was pretty good at this speaking thing.

Three years ago I came across this TED talk by Nancy Duarte, whose ‘secret structure’ of great presentations I have used since I subsequently read her book, Resonate.  Essentially, she recommends that we invite audiences on adventure stories, create active tension between what is and what could be, and most importantly, make the audience the hero.  I have done this better and worse since then, but I always recognize the framework when I see it.  Those familiar with this blog know that I am also a fan of Simon Sinek, whose central message is that we perform at our best when we are crystal clear about our Why.  “People don’t buy what you do, they buy Why you do it,” he says.  Barack Obama employs both authors’ principles with eloquence and finesse, which I noticed reading We Are The Change We Seek, a collection of his speeches as president.  The best speeches delivered in this construction create audiences who are inspired, motivated, and empowered to hail a meaningful call to action.

Obama is could be core values

That’s basically what David Litt conveyed tonight.  When asked what advice he was given that served him best, he said, “Imagine someone in your audience will tell their friend tomorrow about your talk.  What is the one thing you want them to say about it?”  What is the Why of your talk?  Even though he no longer writes speeches for the most powerful person in the world, he expressed a desire to continue inspiring, empowering, and promoting personal agency in all whom his work touches. Make each and every audience member their own hero.

It turns out, however, that this approach applies to much more than public speaking.  On my 50 hour, 500 mile, aspen-pursuing weekend in Colorado last month, I described to my dear friend my favorite moments at work.  At the end of a patient’s day-long physical, after I have spent 90 minutes listening to their stories of weight gain and loss, work transitions and complex family dynamics, and reviewing their biometrics and blood test results, I meet with them for an additional 30 minutes to debrief.  This is when I present an integrated action plan compiled by the nutritionist, exercise physiologist, and myself.  It is a bulleted summary of our conversations throughout the day, centered on the patient’s core values and self-determined short and long term health goals, and crafted with their full participation.  I get to reflect back to my patients all that I see them doing well, and shine light on areas for potential improvement.  It’s an opportunity to explore the possible—to Aim High, Aim Higher, as the United States Air Force exhorts.  I often present the plan with phrases like, “Strong work!” “You’ got this,” and “Can’t wait to see what the coming year brings!”  My friend turned to me as we wound through autumn gold in the Rocky Mountains, a bit tearfully, and said, “You make them the hero of their own story.”  Yeah, I do, I thought, and I got a little teary, too.

Words are powerful.  They are our primary tool for relating to each other, for making another person feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved.  You don’t have to be a public speaker or a presidential speechwriter to make a positive difference with your words.  At work, in your family, with your friends, with people on the street and in the elevator—what is the one thing you want someone to remember from their encounter with you?