This I Believe!
Finalist, Northeast Regional STFM Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA October 19th, 2007
I am a Family Physician. My generalist eyes see only the big picture–it is beautiful, boundless, peaceful. All the little frustrations and hassles that I encounter each day are but the sharp, shiny, shards that make up the mosaic of my life and create a grand design that I cannot see.
The unit of my life is a single day. My job is to make each one as full and magical and mysterious as possible. Forget about plans, and bills, and deadlines, and legal matters, and final destinations.
How is this day? How am I in it? Am I with the people I want to be with? Am I right with them? In my work, people are the medium of healing, the currency of my business, the stars of my stories. You gotta love 'em–warts and all. And I do.
The marvel of my career in Family Medicine is that I can be anything that I want to be anywhere, full-time or part-time–a practitioner, a school or public health official, an entrepreneur, an artist, or an author, or even a philosopher.
I deal with the stuff of life. People. Lots of them. Births. Deaths. Illness. Employment. Summer camp. Trauma. Divorce. Addictions. Abuse.
I take care of the heroes who survive these traumas and who honor me by sharing their stories and their trust.
I help just by making them strong enough in body or spirit, one way or another, to show up for another day in an attempt to make their lives right.
What they want from me is not the Encyclopedia Medicana, not any particular pills, certainly not any test. Not even a right diagnosis. What my partners in healing need is just a commitment from me to be there for them, whatever their need, whatever sorry shape they're in, to help them get through one more day and to have one more chance to make them right, as they understand them.
This job is about helping two sets of lives to be lived, really lived–mine and theirs.
I can only hold this blessing if I learn to be gentle with myself. I started off very afraid of making mistakes. Why? Did I think I had the option not to make them? Do I think I am not eligible for forgiveness either by my patients or myself.
Sigh. I am just another, ordinary, flawed mortal, who is also trying to make his life right. Mea culpa.
That's what makes me so right for this job.
More information coming soon...
