Tales of a persecuted physician - part III

Life lessons…

How I used to describe the current state of the world to my patients in 2020-2021, is this:

“the world is on fire”.

Of course, figuratively, not literally.  We are all collectively living through a truly tumultuous historical time period in human existence.  In real time.  The entire human population, globally, is seeing and experiencing

So much manufactured and needless suffering and carnage.

Such maliciousness and callousness occurring in our human relations and interactions.

I’m times of great difficulty, self reflection and introspection is essential. In this practice, I thought it important to share some of my most memorable moments of positive personal change with my readers.

5 of the most monumental moments of my professional education and experience are outlined below.

1. A psychology professor in my first year of university repeatedly taught us that if there is any absolute answers on tests, that is almost never the correct answer.  I’m not sure if he extrapolated that concept beyond multiple choice test advice, but it’s highly significant to critical thinking.  In particular, stepping back and looking at the question differently with a new angle allows us to see a whole new set of solutions. Not too many absolute certainties exist in life, unless we look to the laws of nature. But, who does that any more? Sigh. Another interconnected life hack - We need to get comfortable with uncertainty.  - A family medicine preceptor brought this to my attention, and I consciously chose to maintain my awareness on this.  It speaks for itself.

2. When something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.  So, when Justin Trudeau boldly and prematurely spoke back in may 2020, only two months into this crisis, that “the only way back to normal is with everyone being vaccinated”… when there was no vaccine yet… this statement is highly questionably on many fronts, but particularly in his early absolute assurance of a fictitious cure and the single solitary path back to normalcy for all Canadians.  It’s too good to be true, given the nature of the complexity of such an enormous health and cultural problem that was in its infancy at that time.  How could he know this?  What other options existed for protection of the population?  Anyhow, the too good to be true statements work well on an unsuspecting mass, perpetually stoked by fear.   Stay vigilant, folks.

3. Inquiry 101 and 102 were mandatory courses to graduate from lakehead university.  I commend them, at least the OG profs in the early days of the Orillia campus.  We had to learn and practice writing high quality academic papers on major world events or even historical events from multiple perspectives. So for example, if I was a prof there today, based on my training from lakehead, circa 2006, I would encourage questions and essays about economics, psychology, sociology, historical, art, theology, literature, child development, political science, philosophy, etc… in the current Covid crisis and response. Such skills are not only required for examining past or remote events, but also when effectively applied to real time large social and political upheaval and issues, we are better able to see a more complete picture.

4. Comfort and quality of life means something different to everyone.  A young new mom became one of my palliative patients. She had an aggressive terminal disease and daily she was deteriorating.  Greeted with a smile each morning rounds, I’ll never forget her gratitude and joy in the most devastating circumstances imaginable.  It seemed impossible, given her circumstances.  She was not long for this world. Each day, seeing her worsen, I would discuss her goals of care and code status with her.  She was dying, rapidly.  Did she still want to be resuscitated with violent chest compressions, breaking ribs, puncturing lungs, and inserting mechanical ventilation when it was certain to fail and certain to be a horrific transition.  Every day she answered “yes doctor, still full code”.  She inevitably coded and suffered an awful ending to her beautiful life. But, as I went home that night and was rocking my wee toddler at bedtime, I realized through my sadness that comfort to this mama had nothing to do with physical pain or suffering.  She wanted to know she always did everything possible to have every last second with her baby while she still could.  Her comfort was in knowing she never gave up trying to remain here with her baby.  Her comfort was in relieving her existential suffering, to any degree, knowing her young baby was going to grow up and live the rest of her life without her mother.  As a mama, snuggling my little cub, I understood so much more about comfort as a palliative care physician.  From this patient, I understood bodily autonomy through an inter-relational perspective.  Many blessings have emerged from this wisdom that the quality of medical care I provided moving forward improved.   

5. As a last pearl I will end with, which is more recently acquired, surrounds merit.  Actions truly speak louder than words, which rather than ignoring or dismissing, we ought to heed such advice.  Pay attention to people’s actions and one will learn a great deal about quality of being and merit.  Gone are the days when hypocrisy, emotionality, and empty promises go unnoticed.

As a thought experiment, please find your inner stillness and consider your quality of being that is broadcast subtly and silently to the world?  Is this who you want to be; how well are you living up to that quality?

A great many extremely talented, quality human beings are voluntarily devoting their time, talents, energy and efforts, by way of pure altruism, collaboration, and unity, who are being targeted for persecution.  A great many abusive superficial equity warriors condemn and silence actual merit and virtue, by way of self interest and maltreatment.  “they cannot validate their positions of power through achievement. their qualifications are doctrinal. so they must demand that doctrine be the yardstick and equity not output the measure of success.” el gato malo (substack)

excellence and equity: bursting the incompetence bubble