Here at Daily Dose we encourage originality and engaging with ones creative side to reset and rebalance during stressful times.
Here is one such original piece, a rap written by 3rd year osteopathic medical student William Qin.
Choose Your Side
You’ve gotta choose your side, Who you gonna believe? You’ve gotta choose your side With the people you wanna believe.
Choose your bubble, snuggle up close And don’t let them go. More than friendship, it’s ideological. And you’ve gotta choose your people, Pick the ones you’ll call home.
Some tools say you’ll lose your soul Just cause you won’t toe their line But we all know that ain’t right. Saying you’ve gotta choose their side Else you’re gonna have a fight. And they’ll tell you, “you need to lose your pride If you want to be on my side.”
You’ve gotta choose your side, Who you gonna believe? You’ve gotta choose your side With the people you wanna believe.
There is so much around us and so much to take in.
We see vibrant ads pop up on our computer screens or out our windows. We hear our neighbor’s tasteless music.
We are badgered by the incessant alerts on our smart phones all while craving just one more dopamine hit.
I ask you. I urge you.
Find your focus.
Right now, I’m constantly thinking about all the things I have to do.
There’s definitely an email or two I’ve forgotten to send, and I’ve put off a paper to write day after day. There are notes to write and patients to see. There are things to read and presentations to prepare for.
Dinner? Dishes? Also, my room is a complete mess. As things pile up outside, we forget they pile up inside as well. Everything takes it toll.
I ask you. I urge you. Find your focus.
Some people get lost in a world of imagination.
Others breathe deeply and hum or become a downward dog and sometimes practically resemble a pretzel.
I’ve even seen people sew or knit for hours on end. I’ve even witnessed people telling themselves they want to go someplace else, and then proceed to get there fast, on their own two feet.
Occasionally, people take a stick and hit a small ball into a faraway hole.
I ask you. I urge you. Find your focus.
It could be a goal. It could be a simple task. It’s your way to get away.
Your way to escape the hustle and bustle of your surroundings and the world.
It’s your way to leave the ads, alerts, papers, patients, dinner, dishes, and messes behind.
It’s your passion.
It’s about discovering clarity and breaking free from the chains of your mind. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Sudoku? Do it. Everyday. A mountain? Climb it.
I ask you.
I urge you.
Find your focus.
Let us know what YOU do to empty your mind and focus on the NOW
Oh so complicated. I realized this when controversy over the identity of the tooth fairy plagued my colleagues. Were magical beings actually invading everyone’s homes or was it simply everyone’s parents? Their conspiracies never swayed me from the truth: my parents were fairies and one day I’d awaken the same powers of dental thievery.
Just kidding. I knew right away the tooth fairy was just a story to help kids not freak out about losing baby teeth, but it always bothered me that the fable even existed – that we had to make this up. It wasn’t until I was older that I fully appreciated the tooth fairy. This story transformed a potentially painful process to an event that kids looked forward to.
After dispelling other noble characters of childhood (like Santa Claus), I took it upon myself to create a personal “tooth fairy story” to reframe my perspective on life.
Life is a movie
Movie (noun): a sequence of consecutive still images recorded in a series to be viewed on a screen in such rapid succession as to give the illusion of natural movement.
The movie of life starts with birth and ends with death. Every moment in the present is a screenshot of the film, and when these images are connected together, the passage of time that you and I experience is created.
Recall the last movie you watched. Pause it at a random spot. If you had never seen the movie, would you be able to determine if the characters on screen were good or bad? Could you deduce that Darth Vader was Luke’s father all along? Would Darth Vader remain evil or would he go on to a redeem himself? You just can’t know from a singular moment.
Movie is life
I like to think everyone stars in their own movie and every encounter with others is an intersection of plotlines. When you meet someone new, you can’t rewind their tape and learn their entire backstory. Nor you can fast forward and see what will happen to them. Because I don’t know who they’ve been or who they will become, I shouldn’t pass judgement or assume anything about others.
Applying the same rationale to ourselves, we only know our own past and have no idea what crazy plot twists lay ahead. With the same open mindedness towards others, we should embrace our own future and all the possibilities in life.
Time is a finite resource for movies. Everything in the film is intentional. Those long pauses in dialogue, subtle changes in the musical score as tensions heighten, hidden pop culture references, and so much more. Movies don’t waste a second and nor should we.
When I feel overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, I take a step back, breathe, and imagine myself on set. Megaphone in hand, the director reassures me:
Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s book “When Breath Becomes Air” provides a sobering view of living life in the face of impending death. Dr. Kalanithi was a brilliant physician finishing his neurosurgery residency when he was suddenly diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. During his battle with cancer, he wrote this book detailing his experiences from the perspective of both a physician and as a patient. His writing contained many pearls to learn from, but two quotes stood out to me.
1) “In that moment, all my occasions of failed empathy came rushing back to me: the times I had pushed discharge over patient worries, ignored patients’ pain when other demands pressed. The people whose suffering I saw, noted, and neatly packaged into various diagnoses, the significance of which I failed to recognize… I feared I was on the way to becoming Tolstoy’s stereotype of a doctor, preoccupied with empty formalism, focussed on the rote treatment of disease and utterly missing the larger human significance.”
In this quote, we see the perspective of Dr. Kalanithi in the role of the physician. He is inundated with tasks focussed solely on getting his work done. Patients became problems on his list of things to be taken care of. I chose this quote because this is a common problem among many physicians and significant contributor to physician burn out. Burnt out physicians have often lost sight of the bigger picture and forget why they originally chose to pursue medicine.
In order to remedy this we must take time to reflect on our interactions. We must live life with gratitude for the opportunity to be serving as physicians. We cannot lose the empathy that we all had when we entered medical school.
2) “I could see that in Brad’s eyes I was not a patient, I was a problem: a box to be checked off.”
In this second quote, we see the perspective of Dr. Kalanithi in the role of the patient. He was requesting for his chemotherapy medication to treat his bone pain from Brad the resident physician, but this medication required special authorization. Being that it was in the middle of the night, Brad did not want to wake and trouble the attending physician.
This quote stands out to me in contrast to the first quote where Dr. Kalanithi was in the physician role similar to Brad viewing the patient as a problem rather than a person.
Now as the patient, Dr. Kalanithi realizes how it feels when a physician sees you as a problem.
Tell us how you feel after reading about Dr. Kalanithi’s change in perspective. Have you seen this happening in your care? How can we help change this “problem” perspective?
The term imposter syndrome has come to seem like the perfect definition of me. Rotations, as amazing and rewarding as they have been, bring forth feelings of insecurity and self-doubt more than I had ever imagined. Sometimes I don’t even know if I am capable of being a doctor. Getting the pimp questions wrong, pronouncing procedure names incorrectly, and just plain making a fool of myself in front of the residents and attendings makes it seem like I learned nothing in the past three years correctly.
While deep down I know these feelings do not define me or my ability to practice medicine, it can be hard to overcome them and move forward. I first read this poem in high school, and it has stuck with me since. This poem helps me overcome the fear associated with imposter syndrome. I’ve been told by countless peers, friends, and family, that I sell myself short. Most of this is out of fear, as the poem below illustrates. If we do not address imposter syndrome, we start to limit ourselves in applying to residences, promotions, and most of all, providing the best care for out patients. If I am not confident in myself, how will I provide the best care and empathy for my patients, why would they listen to someone who seems frightened all the time? Our fears are as Marianne Williamson says below:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Reciting this poem during rotations, and sharing it with other students, residents, and attendings has helped more than just me. It has taught us all to acknowledge the fear and self-doubt, and create strategies to make ourselves stronger from that. Here’s some strategies I’ve used throughout the year to help:
Collect all your positive memories and experiences in some way, shape, or form. For me, this has been through pictures, notes from patients and colleagues, and writings. When I feel down, I look back at all the people’s lives I’ve had some sort of impact in. It really helps lift your mood and strive to provide better care and impact more patients positively.
Have a support system ready. For me, this has been my friends. We studied for 4 years together. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses very well. When a stressful or doubtful situation arises, you can rest assured that I will call my best friend ASAP and talk about how I’m feeling. And it doesn’t take but 5-10 minutes for him to remind me why I’m here and reinforce all the positive aspects I bring to medicine.
Tell yourself, many many times, QUESTIONS aren’t BAD! This is a big one for me. I feel that if I ask a question, I’ll just sound dumb because everyone probably knows the answer already. Don’t every feel like that! When you truly don’t understand something, just ask. You will learn a lot more overall and you would be surprised how much it helps when you later go in to speak to your patients. You develop a better understanding and can engage your patients on a much deeper level.
Sit and talk to your patients. It can sometimes be annoying, okay really annoying, when your attending only assigns you 1-2 patients THE WHOLE DAY. You think, seriously, what I am going to learn from 1-2 patients. I want to see more, learn more. While we cannot always change this, we can make the most out of the opportunity. What I learned is, when I have free time after rounds and when I just don’t feel like studying, I go check up on my patients. I sit with them and just listen to them talk. Sometimes it’s about their illness, sometimes their grandkids, sometimes its how bad hospital food is and how good mom’s cooking really is, sometimes its keeping them company during hemodialysis. It seems like nothing to us, but for our patients, it means the WORLD. Seriously. They light up when you sit and talk to them. And you learn about their lives, which can help understand their condition more too.
We have worked hard to get here. We are in a demanding and difficult profession. But do not forget, we are healers. It may seem like we have little impact now, but we are on the road to making a place in the hearts of many. Keep going strong, take off that imposter mask and be your true compassionate self!
IT COMES FROM the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a man is called to by God.
There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest.
By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.
Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do.
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Originally published in Wishful Thinking BY FREDERICK BUECHNER
From Edward J. Krall, MD: “There is a lot of press about the stress of practicing medicine, but less about the secrets of thriving. There is literature about resilience. It has limitations, but several themes have emerged. Pulling together ideas from that literature and experience from my work with colleagues, I offer to residents these “Ten Commandments of Physician Wellness.”
1. Thou shall not expect someone else to reduce your stress. 2. Thou shall not resist change. 3. Thou shall not take thyself in vain. 4. Remember what is holy to thee. 5. Honor thy limits. 6. Thou shall not work alone. 7. Thou shall not kill or take it out on others. 8. Thou shall not work harder. Thou shall work smarter. 9. Seek to find joy and mastery in thy work. 10. Thou shall continue to learn.
“The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions…”
William Osler BMJ 1909;2:925-928.
“Like song that sweetens toil, laughter brightens the road of life, and to be born with the sense of comic is a precious heritage”.
William Osler ‘Two Frenchman on Laughter‘, CMAJ 1912(II):152
“Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition”.
William Osler. Aequanimitas ‘After 25 years.’ 1914:213
“There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter — loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance. Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or man. Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life”.
William Osler. Two Frenchmen on laughter. Men and Books. CMAJ 1912;(II):152
“Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaint”.
William Osler. Aequanimitas ‘The Master-word in medicine.’ 1914:385
“To serve the art of medicine as it should be served, one must love his fellow man”.
William Osler. Modern medicine, its theory and practice. 1907;(1):34
“Keep a looking glass in your own heart, and the more carefully you scan your own frailties, the more tender you are for those of your fellow creatures”.
Homan E quoting Sir William Osler:Teacher and bibliophile. JAMA 1969;210:2223-5
Daily Dose of Humanities 