-- Monty Python (the brilliant Eric Idle), Life of Brian, 1979
It’s coming up on my 10th patient interview at Georgetown. I always enjoy it. I get to connect with an endocrinologist I’m still close to, even though it’s been about 15 years since he actively treated me. The students also seem to get a lot out of it. Every class is different, and the interview goes where they want it to, so I never know what I am going to talk about. Oh, and it is surprisingly cathartic for me to talk about my experiences in long form (usually between 60 and 90 minutes). An odd development for someone who previously never talked about my patient experience unless specifically asked.
I was talking to my endo about how we should change it up a bit this year, and he mentioned that a student had commented once that the interview had been depressing. I don’t usually have access to the feedback they collect on the class other than that the students get a lot out of it, so I had never really given much thought to the dark nature of my stories before.
But it’s true. When talking about patient experience, often the point is how difficult our conditions make our lives. There is a reason the phrase “disease burden” exists. Having a medical condition is like adding ever larger plates to the barbell of life, lol. It’s a heavy lift.
We don’t often discuss the upside of having medical conditions.
Sounds weird, doesn’t it? How can there be an upside to being sick? And I’m not saying the positive balances the negative, but there is a sliver or two of silver lining sometimes.
My silver lining is what it has done for me psychologically.
I have learned how strong I am, and how resilient. If you can make it through days with debilitating pain, or have survived a brush with death, you tend to keep calm in a crisis more easily.
I have learned to sort wheat from chaff. If your energy is limited, you tend to spend time on things – and people – who mean the most to you. I do not have relationships with people who don’t give as much as they get. I don’t really care what strangers think of me. And I don’t have too much difficulty saying no to things I don’t want to do.
It’s all about perspective. Once you’ve dealt with some of the worst life has to offer, difficult pales in comparison. No matter how bad the mundane gets, you will live to see the sun rise again, and you will figure out how to get through your latest challenge because you have already figured out worse.
Oh, and there’s also that thing about how easy it is calculating tips because of having to calculate carb-to-insulin ratios, but that is not related to perspective.
Anyway. In a setting where I am talking to future clinicians about what they will experience in clinical practice, and how to approach patients, there’s never going to be much sunshine and light. But maybe I should make a point of letting them know that our lives aren’t all a dark slog, either.