Yesterday at church I spent time with my friend with autism. We were enjoying the service (well I was, he was enjoying the DVD he was watching) when all of a sudden something in the movie upset him and he started attacking me. Thankfully his mom had prepared me for a situation like this, and I was able to get him under control in less than 30 secs. But for those 30 secs (which seemed to drag on forever!) we caused quite a commotion, attracting a lot of attention, and my heart was still pounding hard after it had ended.

I tell this story not to elicit sympathy or a reaction, but rather to illustrate some important things I've learned about being in health care. The first is about preparation. Preparation is KEY in my mind when it comes to being an effective health care provider. When I say preparation, I mean doing your homework, knowing the field you are in, knowing the people you will work with, and so on. Being prepared allows you to provide the best care possible in any circumstance, especially when suddenly you have to be quick on your feet. When you prepare yourself to the best of your ability, and things do not turn out the way you hoped or expected, at least you can have confidence in yourself that you did the best you could, and the rest was out of your control. Thankfully my friend's mom had told me what to expect, and what to do to rectify the situation. Even though I was well prepared, it still didn't stop the good old sympathetic nervous system response, hence why I was glad I was prepared for the situation beforehand. Sometimes it can be hard to think clearly when your body goes into panic mode. It is so awesome to be in an ER and see how efficiently the team works together when a code comes in, for example. You can't be a well oiled machine like that without putting the work in beforehand, and for that the patients and their families are very appreciative.

Preparation to me means many things. One, it means knowing everything about everything, aka book smarts (Sid the Science kid, anyone?) Ok...so that's not really possible, but I do try. It's why I take my studies so seriously. You can never be too smart. You never know when you're going to need to call upon those random little bits of information you learned in class that seem unimportant at the time. For example, it might seem that I may never ever look at stereochemistry again in clinical medicine, so why bother learning about enantiomers and diastereomers and allenes that are chiral even though they don't have chiral carbons? Who knows, maybe one day I'm going to see some patient that has ingested something funky, I can shoot it off to the lab to get it analyzed, figure out what's in it, and then understand why that chemical's physical structure is causing the reactions it is. I'm willing to bet that I won't have time to look it all up to understand. Another example is knowing the location and function of the palladium (part of the basal ganglia system). Will I ever have to deal with it clinically in my life? (Unless I'm in neurology), No. But what if I have a patient come in with an injury to that part of the brain? I'll have a good understand of why he is acting the way he is and the best way I can help him.

If I hadn't have been prepared for yesterday's situation, I would have severly disrupted everyone's worship, caused a scene, have to call his mom out of her worship, and would probably be a few handfuls of hair less than when I started. But because I was, I was able to make my friend happy again with very minimal consequences. Also, because I took the time to do some research about autism, I knew exactly why what I was doing to calm him down was working...and why he was behaving as he was.

I also try to be prepared in life knowledge too, in terms of learning about different types of people and life situations. For example, my senior year of college I decided to volunteer at an inner city gang prevention center because I had no experience with people coming from that background. Since then I've taken the time to get experience with cancer patients, heart attack patients, the elderly and those suffering from dementia, newborns, autism, etc etc. By no means an extensive list but least now I have a slight understanding of what these people experience on a daily basis, which I think will be helpful for me when I try to care for them in the future.

The other thing about being prepared and knowing everything about everything is that I could very well be selected to become the next Jason Bourne by the Federal Government...who is secretly my hero because the only reason why he always kicks butt is because of his expansive base of knowledge. I mean really, he's fluent in several languages including Asian dialects, knows just about every martial art there is, knows how to treat injuries on the run, knows how to use countless weapons and knows how they work, and knows how to read people and situations almost flawlessly. Who wouldn't want to be him?!


Alright, let's break from admiring fictional characters and talk about the second lesson, empathy, which is probably one of the most important traits for a health care provider to have. You have to be able to put yourself into another person's shoes and recognize what their state of mind is or how they are feeling. Yesterday I became "that person," and suddenly I realized I had no right to think negative thoughts about "those people" again. You know that person, the mom pulling a tantrum-throwing, headache-causing kid out of the grocery store...the young couple with the whiny baby during church...the person who can't stop coughing...the elderly adult driving wicked slow in front of you..."those" people who by living their own lives manage to cause the minor annoyances in yours. I realized his mom has to deal with this every day of her life, which can be a major burden. How great is it that despite what she has to go through, she still makes it to church with a joyful heart to worship! We hear that colicky baby cry for all of 45 seconds and get annoyed, can you imagine what their parents go through dealing with it 24/7? Hopefully I am getting my point across, and seeing "those" people handle their "situations" with dignity and grace makes them strong and courageous in my eyes.

I know I am going to see people from all different walks of life throughout my career. I already experience this in the ER, and what a great place to practice not being judgmental. It could be so easy to pass judgement on these people, because a lot of their time, their presence in the ER is a result of their poor choices. You know, the patient in respiratory distress because they have been smoking their whole life...or the patient recovering from a heart attack because they couldn't put in the effort to exercise or have self discipline when it came to eating. Empathy means putting aside our own feelings in order to understand what these people are going through. To be able to know how best to serve these patients and tend to their needs to help them get better and give them hope.

That's what Jesus does. He loves us despite our poor choices that cause us to smell. This may be overdoing it a little, but whenever I walk into a patient's room where there is a strong smell, I tell myself that this is the same as Jesus' experience with us. I imagine our sin causes us to reek of some of the most foul odors you can imagine, yet Jesus embraces us with open arms, without reservation. And out of pure thankfulness for that, there is no way that I can not do the same to the people I encounter in my daily life and try to embody that mindset. My theme in the ER is "Love as Jesus would have loved." That is always in my mind when interacting with a patient--how can I love them as Jesus would have? How can I love this woman with dementia who asks me the same five questions over and over again for an hour? How can I love the man who caused me to "babysit" him outside while he had a smoke break, despite being in the hospital? How can I love the man who was just incredibly rude and insulting to me and the nurses around him? How can I love my ten year old friend who just attacked me, despite the fact that I can't communicate to him in a way that I normally would with another person?

Without empathy, health care providers are almost useless. How can we guide healing if we don't know the full extent of how and why and what they are hurting? Without empathy, how can you even spend an extended period of time in this field?

Last night I went to a concert and heard a song called "Just Me" by Sevenglory. The lyrics themselves are simple, but I feel like they have depth:

Are you anything like me?
Is it possible all anybody needs
Is a little more love?
And be the hands the feet
Would it make the world believe?
I don't know...maybe it's just me

To be a health care provider, you have to be the one willing to offer that 'little more love;' to desire to inspire hope in your patients despite the fact that they may screw up time and time again. That takes empathy.

I can't wait to go to class tomorrow and learn about pseudocoelomates and pharyngeal slits, even though I probably won't ever think about them ever again. I can't wait until the ER Friday, when I'll probably be sitting with a person (who most likely smells) and gently helping them understand different lifestyle changes that they are going to have to undertake. I sure can't wait until Sunday when I get to spend time with my autistic friend again, even though the chances of being attacked and dealing with being thought of as "THAT person" by 100 people are pretty high. I just can't wait to respond to the love that Jesus has for me and pour it out onto others so that they can experience (somewhat) too!!!!!!