…to the six people who came to my talk today. It was a pleasure to present to you. You were engaged and attentive, which I very much appreciated. I’m disappointed that more of our colleagues did not join us, as this was the best iteration of this talk yet!
The best part was when we exchanged questions and ideas at the end.
I hope you got something out of the presentation that will help you and your patients. If that’s true for any of you anytime after today, then it was totally worth it. 
Do you have time in your doctors’ appointments to tell the story of your problem? Do you even think of it as a story? More and more I find myself saying to people, after they have given a list of symptoms in no particular order, “Tell me the story, starting from when you last felt well/normal.” Then it all comes out in an interesting narrative, often with new insights as to causes, connections, and exacerbating factors along the way.
Do you read more fiction or nonfiction? I have always been a non-fiction gal. I appreciated The Grapes of Wrath and devoured the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series, but usually I avoid novels. My favorite books this decade are The Art of Possibility, Rising Strong, Big Magic, Start With Why, and Give and Take. I realize now that these books are also full of stories—just real-life ones. I have tried to incorporate more stories in my writing, and I find it challenging and awkward. But I will keep trying, maybe take a creative writing class someday.
I have heard some amazing stories recently, and I will get some details wrong, but I want to share them with you, in case they touch you as they touched me.
A doctor attends a mindfulness workshop because he is interested in mind-body medicine and always looking for new methods to explore his inner world. Part of the workshop is a professional quality of life survey, on which he scores very high for compassion satisfaction and low for burnout. He says it’s because this is a second career for him.
He always wanted to be a doctor growing up. He was accepted to medical school in his home country, but his family could not afford it. So he stuck with science and went to school the cheapest way possible, and graduated with a biology degree. Over the years he got married and immigrated to the United States. He never forgot his dream of being a doctor, but progressed nevertheless in his graduate basic science studies. When he applied to allopathic medical school here in the 1980s, he was told that since his BS was from abroad and the class was already ‘culturally imbalanced,’ he would not be admitted.
He was offered a spot in an osteopathic school, however, and grabbed it. Meanwhile his wife was pregnant with their first child. He had to move away from her and his parents for residency, and while he was away his father died. Sometime in there his wife also started medical school, and they made it through training and the births of two children (with two weeks maternity leave each for her) intact. They are now both well-respected primary care physicians in a small outlying community. He is a physician educator and leader. They sit side by side at the dining room table on Sunday nights catching up on notes. They call these their “Epic dates.” [Epic is the name of a widely used electronic health record.] Both of their children are doctors. He never feels burned out; he is living his dream.
Another doctor, a leader in his field and his institution, and a black man, described everyday racism that most of us cannot fathom. A neighbor approached him on the beach of his own lake house, accusing him of trespassing. Passing drivers backed up to confront him at his mailbox, suspecting him of stealing some white person’s mail. A cop pulls him over around the corner from his suburban home in a nice neighborhood, asking, “What are you doing around here?”
A man in his 50s breeds guppies for fun. It started with his 5th grade teacher, who was his mom’s best friend. He used to go over to her house with his mom, and got interested in her guppy tanks. Now he has hundreds of his own tanks, and he knows everything there is to know about inbreeding, crossbreeding, guppy circadian rhythms, and where the world’s experts on guppy breeding live and work. Now I know this is a thing.
Mr. Rogers is quoted as saying, “There isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard their story.” I wholeheartedly agree.
What if your favorite uncle, whom you have always regarded as funny, warm, loving, and virtuous, if a little odd, were accused of sexual harassment or assault? This is what it feels like to learn of Al Franken’s assault on Leann Tweeden in 2006. I feel nauseated, embarrassed, disappointed, and confused. I have liked Al Franken for a long time, ever since his Stuart Smalley bits on Saturday Night Live. It wasn’t until I listened to his recent memoir, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, that I learned more about him and liked him even better. He’s a little too sarcastic and biting for me sometimes, but after hearing his stories of how he became a Democrat and what motivated him to run for office, his family’s emotional journeys and how things work in the Senate, I came to see him as a respectable public servant with the interests of his constituents and all Americans at heart. I have recommended his book to many of my friends. I have regarded him as a champion for all things progressive, including women’s rights and equality.
And now all of that is thrown in the blender with allegations that I assume are true.
How do I reconcile this? How does a person, whom I still believe respects women at his core, behave like this? Ever? Do I throw away everything about him that I believed was virtuous, everything he has said and written that I agree with, his decades-long marriage, and relabel him as a misogynist because of this one revelation? Do I assume that because now we know of one, there must be dozens of others?
I am forced to compare my response to allegations against him to that of allegations against Roy Moore. I don’t know anything about Roy Moore, but he’s an ultra-conservative Republican (I am a heavily left-leaning independent), so if he goes down for sexual assault, I’m not that bothered, and I’m judgmental of people who defend him. I must concede that neither party can claim moral superiority. Just this week at least three articles examined the precedent set by Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades from which he plainly escaped a rightful accounting; the precedent his (and Hillary’s) dismissal of all allegations set for everything we see now, and why he should have resigned after admitting his abuse of power. And today Nate Silver laid out an excellent case for Al Franken to resign now. I agree that that would be the epitome of Walking the Talk, aside from not having committed the groping in the first place.
My inner conflict now churns on two levels. First, I must decide what I now think and feel about Al Franken, whether I can still trust him, and how I will interpret any of his words or actions hereafter. I feel betrayed, and the positivity needle in my mind has how swung a few degrees more toward cynicism, which I hate. Second, I must examine my immediate reactions when such allegations are made against my political opponents. I think we can agree that there are some cases of flagrant misogyny, based on years of evidence of poor principles and lack of respect in multiples realms of a person’s life, and we are not concerned with their political leanings—assholes are assholes regardless of party. But if and when a reputable conservative were to be accused, would I give him the same benefit of the doubt that I wanted to give Al Franken today? Shouldn’t I try harder to be both objective and compassionate, and rise above my political biases? Is it appropriate to say we all make mistakes, and that we should give people a chance to prove that they now know better? If I am willing to say that for Franken today (and I’m not sure I am), will I be willing to say it for, say, Jeff Flake tomorrow?
We all need to decide for ourselves how much we are willing to abide by the standards to which we hold others. It’s easy until we find ourselves in hot water. So do we lower our standards or rise to the occasion? Perfectionism and shame loom heavy when we aspire to live a virtuous life, and we can also become arrogant and judgmental. Then again, looseness with integrity is no way to lead, either. I wonder what I would do if I were in Al Franken’s shoes tonight.
Healing Through Connection 