55 words

I fell down a little narrative medicine hole today, and in so doing, I found a writing mechanism called the 55-word story.  There is an excellent discussion of this mechanism in this JAMA article from 2017.  Writing is a tool for processing, reflection, entertainment, teaching, and so much more.  But sometimes you just don't have any bloody time.  Enter this tiny sliver of writing!  It's almost a game - 55 words exactly, no more, no less, but in any format you'd like - and completing one is terribly satisfying.

I am going to start doing this, and I hope it will be a regular event.  Here is today's story.

Perspective

My boss leaned back and put her hands on her hips.  "Well, you know what?  I think we kicked ass today.  Well done."

I didn't lift my eyes from the transfer paperwork I was filling out at top speed.  "Do you think so?  I just feel like I got my ass handed to me all day."

She was unfazed.  I saw her shrug out of the corner of my eye.  "No, I think we did a good job.  It was tough today but we took care of patients."

I grunted.  "I guess."

--------

Her words came back to me several hours later, when I was driving home berating myself.  It's something I do often.  Over the years my commute has naturally become an opportunity for me to take stock of the day.  I like to take stock of things, sum them up.  This is especially true of work, where I don't have the time or space to emotionally process during the shift.  I do a kind of final evaluation, sorting my experiences and trying to put them away before I get home. 

The trouble is, I'm never satisfied with my own performance.

Is it a win that I stabilized a transplant patient enough to make it to her critically important transplant meeting tomorrow?  Or is it a sign that I can't manage patients efficiently, since it meant she was with me for nine hours?  Does it mean something that she and her husband thanked me when I checked in with them one last time before I left, two hours after the end of my shift?  Or should I focus on the mother of the child with an earache who had to wait two hours to be seen while her son cried in pain?  She told me off pretty soundly when I finally got in the room.  I couldn't tell her that I had been prepping and transferring a patient with intracranial bleeding and coordinating care for my first ever case of acute angle closure glaucoma, and I didn't mention that we were short a doctor that day.  My instinct isn't to defend myself in those situations.  I just apologized.

I saw so many sick patients today.  Bowel obstructions, cancer complications, my transplant patient.  Two patients with heart rates sprinting away, their owners pale and panting for breath.  I reassured a post-stroke patient that their recovery was just beginning.  I kept someone out of a nursing home by helping to arrange for assistive devices at home.  I made two little kids laugh during their exams!  My boss is right.  She did a good job today and so did I, damn it.  So why don't I feel like I did?

Maybe it's because we were so busy.  My charts aren't finished.  Wait times were long.  That kid with the earache?  He wasn't the only one who had to wait a long time, and people were annoyed about it.  When my night colleague came on, there were patients who had been waiting for hours already queued up for her.  She was nice about it, but I know that's a lousy situation to walk into.

Or maybe there's no external reason.  I know one of my strongest traits is perfectionism; it's a double-edged blade that medicine has sharpened and hardened over time.  I don't know what today would have had to look like for me to feel like I did well.  I just know that I always feel like I'm not disciplined enough, not knowledgeable enough, not efficient enough, not fast enough.  Not kind enough.  Not consistent enough.  Not enough.

I still don't feel like I'm enough.