image credit: lifeasahuman.com
As recently as the 1980s, people were calling for the firing of C. Everett Koop when he was advocating sex education in the schools and the use of condoms to protect against HIV. Nowadays it seems that changes in paradigms of medical thinking are coming along faster than we can keep up with (Coconut oil is the devil - no, wait - coconut oil is good for you!).Sometimes these revolutionary changes come about because of mistakes, or accidents. Take penicillin, for example... if Fleming hadn't left that orange sitting out... However, the current culture of medicine pretty much actively discourages these mistakes. Taking chances, depending on the context, can be tantamount to malpractice, and there are legions of lawyers out there just waiting for you to step into their clutches (for those of you who think I'm lawyer-bashing, maybe I am just a wee bit, but I also freely doctor-bash as well. See Why Doctors Suck for equal opportunity).
I am a recovering perfectionist, and medicine at first seemed like a perfect fit. How better to beat yourself up over every little mistake, if that mistake might kill or injure someone? But as I have come to learn who I am deep down, and to forgive myself for falling short of perfection, I have realized that I want to have a job where it's okay to make a mistake. Where it's okay to prioritize myself and my family. I want the freedom to be human. I want to be free to take chances. I want to be present for my life, rather than perpetually exhausted and stressed out. I realized that I wanted a Medical Divorce. And it really is a divorce - walking away from the investment of years of my life, and hundreds of thousands of my dollars, not to mention my outward identity and the respect and/or censure people attach to physicians in this culture.
My previous way of life devalued mistakes, chances, and evolution. I chose to step away, and to allow myself to evolve into the person I was truly meant to be. That person is still a work in progress, but at least I'm free now to make the beautiful mistakes that will get me there eventually.
I really love this post, Dr. Quinn. It touches me on a personal level. I remember the very first time I was exposed to the attitude that mistakes, of any sort, were frowned upon for the medical professional.
ReplyDeleteI was in college, it was my senior year. I was pre-med, with a double major in biology and chemistry. I went to a small, liberal arts college, more known for graduating degrees in fashion design and international business. So I was viewed as unique, to say the least, for my seeming uncommon choice of degree study.
One of the extracurricular groups I was involved in was having a rummage sale and raffle to make money for its end of year activities. I volunteered to help sell tickets. It was probably a bad day to volunteer, I was very sick...I had contracted a nasty upper respiratory infection...the kind that runs rampant on college campuses. But I had promised my time and my fellow group members were depending on me to be there, so I forced myself to sit at the booth for a couple of hours.
I don't know if it was the fever delirium, or the throat pain, or the decongestant I was on, but I wasn't thinking 100% clearly and I accidentally gave the wrong change to one of the raffle ticket buyers. I realized my mistake right away and was correcting it, when one of my fellow raffle ticket sellers turned to me and said, "Oh my God! You want to go to medical school and you can't even give the right change back to people????!!!!".
She said it loudly and in front of everyone, and my drippy nose and I felt sheepish and foolish. And it was then, the very first time, that I got a taste of what is expected of doctors, before I was even a doctor! I was shown single-handedly, that mistakes are BAD if you want to go into medicine. It was as if I had to relinquish being human at the door, if I wanted to step ahead and proceed into the world of doctors and nurses and patients and prescription pads. I was no longer going to be allowed to trip and pick myself up--I had to avoid tripping. I had to get rubber soled shoes.
It was also my very first red flag about going into the medical field. One I should have heeded. But what did I know back then? I trudged on. I took my decongestant.