Tag Archives: Reflective Writing

Syndicated, Virginia Group

Christmastime Reflections

This week,  I shook up my family’s television & movie comfort zone.  While we watch a lot less television than the average American family, I like for us to have one or two programs that we watch together: to stimulate conversation, to diversify our free time activities, to give me an excuse to hug my kids every night on the couch.  As a family, we tend to choose shows that allow us to discuss intersectionality and identity: Black-ish for race, ethnicity, and money; Gilmore Girls for race, ethnicity, gender, and money; Modern Family for all the things they don’t mention about race, ethnicity, gender, and money (at least in the three seasons that I’ve seen so far).

However, this week I decided it was time for a break from our usual shows, and, given the season, I pulled out the classic Christmas movies.  I felt like the kids were finally old enough to handle the black and white, uncut version of It’s a Wonderful Life, and it did not disappoint.  The family conversations about race, gender, and classism were as rich as usual. The look my 12-year-old daughter gave me when Jimmy Stewart swats the family maid on the bottom to chase her back into the kitchen…yes, I had a lot of explaining to do, and explain I did.

But I’m used to all that.

It was my 9-year-old who pulled out the most interesting question, a day later: “Mom, why do we even consider It’s a Wonderful Life a Christmas movie?”

It’s a great question.  Much of the film takes place in a series of flashbacks which do not fall in the Christmas season. From her perspective, the film revolves around power and economic struggle and the classic American dream of owning a home.  These are not Christmas ideas – they are everyday ideas – so why do we watch it at Christmas?

I pointed out that the most beloved and important scenes take place on Christmas Eve.  I mention that angels are most frequently (though not exclusively) associated with Christmas Eve.  However, these two rather superficial points were not enough for either of us. So I compared and contrasted it to A Christmas Carol – a movie that she already accepts as a Christmas film.

Both movies are driven by reflection. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is transformed by the realization that he is not engaging with the world as his best self. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George is transformed by the realization that he has been engaging with the world as his best self. These characters really are more similar than dissimilar. The fact that they are both forced to engage in reflection (by supernatural or religious figures…I’ll restrain myself from making these synonymous) at the end of the year…it seems like something to which we all relate.  End-of-the-year reflection is a near-ritualistic act in our culture, so prevalent that my 9-year-old accepted all of this immediately and without further argument (she wasn’t buying the angel angle).

I recently and randomly saw a Willa Cather quote: “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”

Brilliant quote.  Reflective learning is not everything, but it is something. It is the learning we do in the calmer moments. While we should do it more than once a year, at least most of us do it this time of year. As we all do it in the next few weeks, remember to think about the year from multiple perspectives – as George Bailey and Scrooge.  Remember that they were both bailed out not so much by the supernatural (or their religiousity) but by their friends, family, and the people who believed in them.

Syndicated, Virginia Group

End of another era

Approximately seven years ago, I left a rapidly growing medical practice for an uncertain future. I didn’t have a plan.  Come to find out, I didn’t have much of an idea about my core identity either, because what I had was so integrated with my profession. The year(s) after I left medicine was (were) very dark, but they provided me with all the opportunities to hit rock bottom, to make mistakes, to ask for help, and to be brave in a Paul Simon, Cool, Cool River  kind of way.

How many times have I blogged about how difficult it is when someone asks me about leaving medicine?  I can think of three separate post and a handful of tweets, but there have probably been more. I haven’t liked it very much. The comments about my questionable work ethic,  my presumed student debt and the disappointment to my family, the rumors that I must be addicted to drugs or alcohol or guilty of extreme malpractice — I’ve heard them all.  All of those things would flash through my head – along with a healthy dose of self-hatred (for not being able to stick with it, to prevent burnout, to advocate for myself better) – every time some stranger would casually ask me why I left medicine…and then walk away after a minute or two leaving me to re-play my answer in my head over and over and over again.  I never answered well.

Things changed last week during my MBTI certification.  In one day five different clusters of people walked up to me and asked me why I had left medicine (it’s a long story on why they knew I was a physician in the first place – even when I don’t include it in my intro, it invariably comes up. It’s such a large part of my perspective on life that it always does).  I have no idea what made this day different. Maybe it was the intensity of the experience, the fact that they were all genuinely curious. Maybe I truly am done with feeling victimized by others’ assumptions.  I don’t know.  But I finally got my answer in place in a way that doesn’t leave me torn up after I’m done giving it.

Today hasn’t been the greatest day.  It wasn’t the worst, but I’ve moved on to my next hangup, -the next professional hurdle I need to move past.  I’ll save that for another day, but I want to take a moment to celebrate this victory for what it is. I deserve this.

So.  My two minutes on why I am no longer a physician.

Why I Am No Longer A Physician

By Laura Gogia

Three reasons.

  1.  A lack of resources.  I went to work in an underserved, isolated region straight out of residency training. I was the only gynecologist, the only female surgeon, the only surgeon who was also the mother of tiny babies.  I worked in a hospital culture rife with sexism, sexual harassment, bullies, mediocrity, and general dysfunction.  I had no mentors, no peers, no backup, no help, no call coverage, no vacations, no strategies for dealing with desperately poor, uneducated, holistically unhealthy populations. I was all in, but I was unprepared.
  2. A lack of opportunity. A lack of peers means a lack of professional development. Medicine is easy enough to keep up on via conferences and reading; surgical skills require practice and interdisciplinary training.  I refused to place my patients at risk for the sake of my learning curve.  My surgical skills were out of date in three years and that was unacceptable to me.
  3. I wanted something different.  I love people and their stories but I am not built to engage with so many people in intensely important (sacred, even) one-on-one scenarios everyday, nor am I built to work the same, limited number of diagnostic algorithms day in and day out. To be happy, I need more freedom, more quiet time, and more creativity than the proper practice of medicine allows.

There.  That’s the whole story.  It’s actually quite simple and logical. It’s also entirely forgivable…maybe even brave and very smart.  And I can say it without wanting to cry or throw up after I’m done.

On to the next challenge.

Featured Image by Chad Madden, http://www.unsplash.com