{"id":1347,"date":"2020-04-04T19:08:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T23:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2020-04-18T16:47:30","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T20:47:30","slug":"accepting-my-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/accepting-my-ignorance\/","title":{"rendered":"Accepting My Ignorance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wanted to volunteer for a hospice program after reading Being Mortal<\/em> by Atul Gawande. Before reading that book, I believed that a good life was a long life and that the role of doctors was to extend the life of their patients. I had never considered what a good death was or what it meant to me. Reading Being Mortal<\/em> felt like the axis of my world was shifting. I recommended the book to everyone I knew, because of its exploration of how America treats its elderly and especially how the US medical system views death. I decided then that I wanted to be a geriatrician and volunteer or work in a hospice program. When I was offered the opportunity to volunteer through Compassus, I was thrilled and jumped at it.<\/p>\n

When I started volunteering, I did not know how much I didn\u2019t know. While I didn\u2019t recognize it at the time, I expected that I would see concrete evidence that I had helped a patient and that the patient, or their relatives would be grateful and happy that I was helping. These illusions were selfish and proved wrong in my first visit with a patient, who I\u2019ll call Jay<\/em>. In our visits, Jay<\/em> was extremely tired and had difficulty speaking. When she would talk to me, she would often forget what she was saying mid-sentence or drift asleep. It was not what I\u2019d expected, and I was disappointed in myself. I kept telling myself if I was better, more entertaining and more talkative, she would talk to me. I thought, because we weren\u2019t talking, that I could not be helping her. It took about two months for me to realize that I needed to change my expectations, both for what I should be doing for her and what a beneficial social interaction was. Even if we were not talking, it was nice to sit next to each other. I would knit and we would watch a movie, or I would tell stories about my life. She really liked how soft my yarn was, so I brought her a pom-pom I made from the yarn. When I let go of my expectations, I was able to have visits that were more fulfilling for both of us.<\/p>\n

Through hospice I learned to accept my situation and the situation of those around me. Struggling to create a situation that I viewed \u2018normal\u2019 was frustrating for both of us. I want to take this lesson with me as I pursue medicine. Both that I need to be flexible, but especially to acknowledge my ignorance. In \u201cThe Lesson of Impermanence,\u201d Sunita Puri talks about how when she became a doctor, she thought she was prepared to face death, but still found the experience emotionally draining. If I had not gone through this program, I would have approached a career in medicine with a similar attitude and belief that because I knew that death wasn\u2019t always something to avoid, that I could be a good doctor. That article and this experience taught me that theoretical understanding cannot compare to emotional realities. To help future patients and myself, I want to hold this awareness of my ignorance and willingness to learn and adapt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to volunteer for a hospice program after reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Before reading that book, I believed that a good life was a long life and that the role of doctors was to extend the life of their patients. I had never considered what a good death was or what it … Continue reading “Accepting My Ignorance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"school":[15],"program_year":[31],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-swarthmore","program_year-31"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1463,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}