Mile 3187: Stand Up

Above: April 2010. Our wonderful crew & one of our attendings for the last two weeks.

GET UP... STAND UP...
STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHT.
Bob Marley

I have something to admit. I'm a frequent second guesser. I know. It's a bad habit. I gotta quit... I'm working on it.

I'm coming up on the last day of these past two weeks. From my last entry you've seen I've had many firsts at the clinic we're working at. Our past Wednesday was one of the busiest we've seen, and at the end of the day we found ourselves sitting on those big fluffy couches, simply tired. Our attending (different from last time), comes in, pulls up a roller chair and starts to talk to us.

His words were quite simple, but they were encouraging. He said to us that our team (the one pictured above) pulled in quite a huge amount of patients for such a short time period, much more than previous teams he had worked with. We had worked efficiently and hard to accomplish a lot. Then he told us some good advice, advising us to start defending our decisions. I forgot his exact words, but from what I remember, it made lots of sense: the only way that us students will learn is if we take our own positions and defend them as well as we possibly can.

It comes down to a concept that I've been trying to work on all along: making medicine my own. There's a lot of data, opinions, and options out there in the medical field. But in order to learn, I need to interpret and make sure I can be competent in taking whatever is best and applying it to the decisions I make for my patients. Each patient that I'm put in charge of is my responsibility... if someone tells me or tries to do something that stands in the way of my approach to the patient, I need to be secure about my decisions. Otherwise, something might go wrong, just when the ability to control the situation slips out of my own hands.

So I need to stop second guessing. The physician's assistant (PA) that was working with us told me that she saw no reason for me to overthink, and to pick up that confidence to make solid decisions. With 2 more weeks in the rotation to go, I'll give that my best shot, with some motivation from her encouragement.

So, to Eric, Faith, Vanessa, Melissa, Veronica, and Shannon, thanks for being a great team. To our attendings at the clinic, Dr. S., Dr. G., and Dr. M., thanks for all your support to us. Finally, to the people at the shelter we serve, thanks for all your trust.