“Greatness begins beyond your comfort zone.”
Robin Sharma
These last several weeks have been an exercise in sitting with and leaning into discomfort. Each day is full of firsts as I continue to hone new skills. I’m polishing my communication abilities as I provide updates and have serious discussions with patient families, handle urgent situations and build relationships with patients over time. I’ve come a long way in just these few short months since starting residency. I need to keep remembering just how far I’ve come when imposter syndrome has me doubting myself. I’m absolutely my worst enemy there. I found myself under an incredible amount of pressure recently, the vast majority of which was self-induced. It set me up for anxiety and insecurity as I worried about whether I knew enough, was doing enough, if my performance was up to par. That negative headspace was not at all productive and blocked me from being my best. I’m grateful to one of my senior residents, who cared enough to make that connection and point it out to me. She also shared her own experiences with similar struggles, letting me knowing that I wasn’t alone. I can’t tell you how reassuring that was to hear and the perspective shift our conversation helped me make was a game changer. I’ve since been changing the story I tell myself. I’m here to learn, first and foremost. I’m not expected to know everything. I’m doing my best and that’s enough. I actively kick my imposter syndrome to the curb and it’s made an incredible difference.
A huge factor leading me to that point was also quite simply exhaustion. Working nearly 80 hours a week in the ICU was beyond draining physically, mentally, and emotionally. Thank goodness this current rotation provides a break from patient care responsibilities as we learn various procedures and other skills there just isn’t time to teach on the floors. The best part of this block though, is that my entire cohort is all on the same rotation together. It’s been a blast to catch up and spend time together. We planned a weekend getaway to the Adirondacks, which was incredible. We hiked, played games, laughed a ton and got to know one another even better. I think we all needed to unplug for a minute. I certainly miss being able to exercise as much as I want to and have not been cooking nearly as much as I’d like for myself. I’ve been prioritizing sleep and keeping up with family and friends, and that’s okay. As time goes on, I look forward to rekindling more of my passions. I want to join a choir and get involved in the community. There is so much more to me than being a doctor, but the job doesn’t always make it easy to nurture those sides of me. I’m grateful I had the chance to go home and see family for Thanksgiving. While the trip home, as always, was too short, it was so nice to see everyone and reconnect with who I am outside of medicine.
We all have our own experiences and strengths that color how we see the world and contribute to our identities. As a leader in the future, I hope to harness the strengths of my colleagues to form an effective team where all know they’re valued. I can’t wait to be the upper level resident I always wanted. Something I hope to change is how we approach feedback. So frequently, we hear mostly negative feedback about how we forgot this or did that wrong. Rare are the times where we get positive feedback about areas where we’ve excelled. It’s an opportunity missed to point out one’s strengths, so that they can be built upon and utilized to the fullest. I already am trying to do this with med students on my team. I hype them up every chance I get, making sure all know the incredible work they do. I aim to be as specific as I can in my feedback, giving examples of patients they took care of to highlight where their strengths shined though and ways I might have thought about something differently to help them take it to the next level. Moving forward, I look forward to growing into the thoughtful leadership I’ve seen modeled by my mentors and discerning the path my career will take in the future.