Category Archives: physician

Walking the Talk

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Where do you fall into dogma traps?

Back in March I told friends not to wear masks in public.  I was angry at people for hoarding PPE for personal use when hospital workers did not have enough.  My classmates sewed cloth masks for nurses while people perused grocery stores wearing N95s around their chins.  I stated my opinions strongly and ate those words later.

This week I find myself softening previously strong opinions about in person school and personal gatherings.  I have successfully sought varying perspectives on these issues, and not always so successfully incorporated contrary information into my perspective.  At the end of summer I could not imagine how hordes of kids could be brought back to school safely.  Now I have seen multiple accounts of schools and universities that did it safely.  The keys:  Cogent plans based on local conditions; heavy investment of myriad resources; and constant, clear communication.  While I worry increasingly about family gatherings for the holidays, it looks like restaurants, bars, and churches may still be the chief culprits of the current COVID surge.

I still get a little palpitative hearing some patients’ plans for Thanksgiving, and picturing college students coming home this week.  It could be bad. But thinking in broad, overgeneralized terms, and especially making skeptical assumptions about people and their motives, doesn’t help anything.  I just get grumpy, and my neck hurts.  We messaged our patients about how to do the holidays safely.  Though not quarantining, many have tried earnestly to minimize exposures in advance of gathering.  It could be okay, maybe.

We are all doing our best.  I speak and write about withholding judgment and being present with generosity.  Now is a good time to hold myself accountable to that standard.

Death Comes Closer

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

How many more before it’s over?

This weekend I felt the Reaper’s cold breath over my shoulder again.  It came last 20 years ago, when I left residency for a week and flew to Taiwan, where my grandmother was dying.  The ICU at the teaching hospital in her city was positively rudimentary compared to where I was training.  She was intubated but fully awake, and rolled over before the doctor even had to ask, so he could listen to her failing lungs.  That was Po-Po, always making life easier for others, even at the end of her own. 

Imminent death agitates and disorients like nothing else.  In training I learned to detach just enough to be objective.  My elders modeled the compassion and empathy required to shepherd both patients and families through the passage.  In the emergency department and ICU, and on the cancer floor, we observed a calm, professional reverence for the end of life.  But only a few patients might die on any given month-long rotation.  Today my friends in these specialties witness death, sometimes multiple, often gruesome, on a daily basis.  They risk their own lives, and serve also as intimate messengers and chaplains, in service of helping soul after soul ascend in peace, if that’s even possible. 

When it was my Po-Po, I was beside myself.  I cried non-stop the whole 15 hour flight stateside.  And then I went back to work. 

Tonight I pray for all of us, especially our healthcare heroes.  Death will likely claim someone in each of our circles before this pandemic is over, if it hasn’t already.  I wish I could do more to halt the unyielding march.  But how many times can I say mask and distance?  It’s futile.

Credentials and Credibility

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Who do you trust?  Why? 

Margo and I were friends.  So when she recommended Christine as a life coach, I trusted enough to make the call.  I had no idea what a life coach was; “CPCC” was meaningless to me.  But after the intake call, her credibility and expertise were well-established, and she has been my coach ever since.  That was 2005.

I spent $900 and a weekend on Zoom last month for Ozan Varol’s Moonshot Academy.  I trusted in the value of the experience based on my interaction with Ozan’s Inner Circle to date—for two days I would give and receive peer coaching in a creative and challenging environment.  And bonus, I met Andrew, Kes, and Nicole.  Each of us aims to learn, share, expand our horizons, and do more good, hallelujah!

Kes’s last blog post goaded me to differentiate between credentials and credibility—my own and others’ alike.  Do I deserve your trust in clinic just by virtue of my MD?  What about when I speak and write on communication and leadership?  Why should you trust me?  Why should I trust you?

What are credentials?  My list includes education, work/life experience, recommendations/references, and body of work (eg peer reviewed publications). 

What establishes credibility?  My list: Attitude (humility, honesty, curiosity, reciprocity); consistency and integrity; purpose; quality of relationships (and thus references).  Christine’s credentials are solid.  Like any good professional she expands her expertise with continuous study.  But her credibility stems from her honesty and integrity—who she is.  It’s why I refer patients and friends.  Their feedback glows, and Christine’s credibility expands.

So perhaps credentials are superficial—what we’ve done, what’s immediately visible…  And credibility is deep—who we are, what we’re about.  I know which is more important to me.