You looked at me and smirked. I paused with my hand on the switch.
You: “That’s in the script?”
Me: “Say what now?”
You: “What my druthers is when it come to anything.”
You chuckled.
You: “We don’t call no shots.”
Ooph.
2/ Me: *nervous laugh*
You: “Y’all be asking stuff like we got a say. But then y’all do what y’all want. Wake you up and stick you with a needle. Put some cold hands on you. Talk your damn head off.”
Me: “Ouch.”
*laughter*
You: “Oh wait. You do get to pick what you gon’ eat.”
3/ Neighbor in next bed: *yelling* “Buuuuuuull-shit!”
*laughter*
Neighbor: “They got me on soup with no noodles and jello!”
Me: *chuckling* “Maybe your doctor wants you on clear foods and liquids.”
You: “Or maybe your doctor just doing whatever they feel like.”
*laughter*
4/ Neighbor: “Talking ‘bout some, ‘Lights on or lights off?’ Then give you some jello and thassit.”
You: “Right?!” *laughing* “Or order a test that you ain’t ask for but got to starve for all day for!”
If they could’ve high-fived through the curtain they would have.
Hmmmm.
5/ I sat on the bedside chair and listened to the banter back and forth between the two beds.
You turned and looked at me. Your face warmed into a smile and you reached for my hand. I took it.
Me: “How can we do better?”
You chuckled again.
6/ Me: “I’m for real!”
Your face grew serious.
You: “Count to five.”
Me: “Say what now?”
You: “Like count to five ‘fore you walk in and ‘fore you walk out. If you do that, that’s all you need.”
*silence*
You: “Do that make sense?”
Me: *slow nod* “Total sense.”
7/ And so. I stood up and walked over to the door. With my hand on the light switch, I counted to five in my head.
And a few things came to me:
1. Your light had been off before I came in. 2. I’d muted your television and hadn’t turned it back on. 3. I’d left your sock off.
8/ I walked back to your bed.
Me: “You okay with me putting things back like I found them? Or something else?”
You: “That sound good.”
And so I did.
Lights off.
Sound on.
Two socks.
And all it took was counting to five.
Me: “I’ll see you a little later.”
9/ You: “Okey doke.”
I stepped out into the hallway. As I stepped away I heard someone calling me and stuck my head into the door.
Neighbor: “Yooooo!! You ain’t ask me what I wanted! Hook me up with some solid food!”
*laughter*
Me: “I’ll pass that on.”
*laughter*
10/ And so. Today, wherever you are caring for patients, consider my patient’s wise advice and count to five.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
It’s all you need to get off the script and into the person.
Them: "Did you watch it?"
Me: "I saw a part of it this morning. But that was too much so I stopped."
*silence*
Me: "Did you?"
Them: "I ain't gon' even lie. I did. I kept saying I wasn't but I did."
*silence*
Me: "You okay?"
Them: "Define 'okay.'"
2/ Me: "I hear you. Retract that."
*silence*
Them: "Know what? I actually don't even recommend you watch it. 'Specially not the real bad parts."
Me: *listening*
Them: "Plus you got manchildren. It'll fuck you up too much." *covers mouth* "I mean, mess you up."
Me: *nods*
3/ Them: "Dude was a hunned-forty pounds. Prob'ly soaking wet!" *shaking head*
Me: "Even if he was 3-fifty he didn't deserve that."
Them: "But got damn! A hunned-forty? Maaaaane. That's fucked up." *raises brow* "I mean messed up."
Me: "Nah, fam. It's just what you said."
1/ If bright-eyed, bushy-tailed neophyte faculty me had joined @EmoryGIM with the process described in this @JHospMedicine piece? I am certain that I would’ve been promoted far sooner.
Especially as a woman and a minority.
For us? This piece was personal.
Let me explain.
2/ There are so people in academic medicine working super hard but not getting any closer to promotion to senior ranks.
Yup.
When I started, I just assumed that as long as I kept showing up, one day a trumpet would sound and someone would tell me it was time to “go up.”
3/ So I enthusiastically took on institutional committees, did my clinical work with zeal, and said “OK” to anything that might “look good on my CV.”
Yup.
But what I didn’t realize is, without a plan, not only would my efforts feel Sisyphean—after a while I’d surely burn out.