Thread by @NatsforDocs

#FridayNightMusings
The end of my week involves reflecting on my week and what I've learned from my experiences & conversations with others. Topics in my awareness are gender inequality in medicine, physician burnout, abuse in healthcare & sharing/oversharing our stories 1/

There are those here who strive to inspire peers, provide a space for connection & rally for change through the various discussion threads. It's clear to me that there's a lot of passion & desire to do great things in the world by those who I follow/see in my feed. 2/

I can also feel the collective frustration/anger/angst/sadness/resignation/sympathy/name that heavy emotion when any of our efforts aimed at success & liberation from system constraints appear to be blocked by injustice, abuse, ineffective strategy or poor communication. 3/

These feelings inspire discussion threads of activism & solidarity and thus, connection. It's wonderful when we discover our peeps - it's reassuring to know we're not going through our stuff all alone. It helps us feel validated & seen. With every positive there's also negative 4

Due to our desire to experience a different reality, ie HCPs can do their work & end their shift with more energy than when they started or everyone feels respected & valued or women have the same opportunities as men or emotional sensitivity is seen as an asset & so on, 5/

we start to focus more on the problems & injustices. We see examples of inequality, sexism, racism, bullying & all forms of abuse play out daily at work & other areas of life. Indeed, it's important to acknowledge the causes to personal, professional & existential harm. 6/

Yet, these represent one reality that's unfolding simultaneously to other realities. Those other realities also include expressions of equality, fairness, kindness, compassion, resolution, leadership, respect & cooperation. If these are the components of the reality we want 7/

then we need to shift our gaze to see them hidden in plain sight. We need to talk about the moments when we caught a glimpse of that reality more often & share ideas of the tools we're using to see it. Then we'll start to discover that those moments increase in frequency 8/

and stretch into hours into days into a culture that looks and feels like the reality that we've wanted all along but believed wasn't there. It will all seem so normal, until the next challenge appears to get us to refocus on our vision & purpose once again. 9/

We can't wait until we attain positions of leadership or those appointed to positions of 'leadership' for change to occur because we're still giving our power away to someone else to be the saviour & giving it away to some mythical position or status that finally gives us 10/

permission & perceived security to take action toward beneficial change. There is no saviour or authority in charge of creating the reality that already exists. Each of us is the authority, leader & changemaker who can use our minds, actions and voices to focus 11/

on what's working well & how to to do more of it. We might need to work with models who can mentor us in leadership skills so that we can express the qualities that we so badly want to see in medical/healthcare culture with skill in an effort to create that new way, 12/

even if others aren't. And when others aren't, it's so easy to drop into cynicism to mask our underlying disappointment & a weapon against potential disappointment that leads to blaming others/system for not living up to our expectations & fulfilling our desires to experience 13/

our ideal reality. This is the pedestal effect.

Each of us is responsible for seeing the good that's already there. Be the change & be it even when no one else is because you never know who's watching & seeing you as their model for leadership, hope & change in motion. FIN .

#womeninmedicine @masterurwords

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