Thank you. I shared this with my 13-year-old perfectionist daughter. She found it interesting. I know that when you hold yourself to a very high standard, it's sometimes hard to be kind to yourself.
My experience of grade points being perfect amusing. Smart driven students learn how to get grade points great. To be a caring physician these may not be sufficient. I admonished residents finishing that this journey leads to continued learning. Then, the half life of medical knowledge was five years. Today far shorter period. Curiosity and love of learning as well as love of men are needed to be “ more perfect” as you careen along. The solution to problems opens a wide array of more problems. Moving on requires great humility and sincere desire to know more. Your mentor embodies these
Is it the good feeling after our accomplishment that we crave, or the avoidance of shame we might feel should we not do well? That might be where self kindness gets crowded out.
I believe that perfectionism is all about ego. When I stop trying to be perfect I may quit thinking about the great job that I am doing and concentrate on the specific need of the moment.
Perhaps perfectionism has it's place, but does not belong everywhere?
You are definitely on to something.
Here is my thought for the day. Being a doctor is like being a mom. Once you are there you never leave.
The pressure, internal and external, on physicians to be perfect is a disaster for patients. Especially patients with rare or complex diseases, and patients who are not white, male, cis, het, and upper income.
Most physicians, when they encounter a patient they can't immediately diagnose, get triggered. Their fear of imperfection threatens to overwhelm them.
They respond by projecting their uncomfortable emotions onto the patient. They tell themselves that the patient has a functional or psychosomatic illness, and the physician's discomfort is intuition telling them so.
This effect is greatly magnified if the patient is female, BIPOC, LGBTQ, etc. And even more so if the physician is not.
Most physicians practicing now seem to be completely ignorant of how a single hint at functional disorder in a patient's chart can lock that patient out of receiving any medical care for any illness, for decades.
Delaying care for serious diseases in this way can destroy a patient's life -- causing them to lose their job, for example, when very treatable symptoms make them unable to work.
Is this emphasized in medical schools yet?
We need to reward physicians-in-training for saying, "I don't know" and then going on to find out.
This this issue is especially relevant now, when the CDC says approximately 100 million Americans have post-covid health issues -- most of them with heart symptoms, either of unknown etiology or poorly understood diseases such as POTS.
Perfection is in the mind of the beholder. What matters is what is helping other minds. And as Voltaire said, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Thank you. I shared this with my 13-year-old perfectionist daughter. She found it interesting. I know that when you hold yourself to a very high standard, it's sometimes hard to be kind to yourself.
Enjoy musing
My experience of grade points being perfect amusing. Smart driven students learn how to get grade points great. To be a caring physician these may not be sufficient. I admonished residents finishing that this journey leads to continued learning. Then, the half life of medical knowledge was five years. Today far shorter period. Curiosity and love of learning as well as love of men are needed to be “ more perfect” as you careen along. The solution to problems opens a wide array of more problems. Moving on requires great humility and sincere desire to know more. Your mentor embodies these
Is it the good feeling after our accomplishment that we crave, or the avoidance of shame we might feel should we not do well? That might be where self kindness gets crowded out.
I believe that perfectionism is all about ego. When I stop trying to be perfect I may quit thinking about the great job that I am doing and concentrate on the specific need of the moment.
Perhaps perfectionism has it's place, but does not belong everywhere?
You are definitely on to something.
Here is my thought for the day. Being a doctor is like being a mom. Once you are there you never leave.
I am also claiming for myself, "I choose to treat myself with compassion."
The pressure, internal and external, on physicians to be perfect is a disaster for patients. Especially patients with rare or complex diseases, and patients who are not white, male, cis, het, and upper income.
Most physicians, when they encounter a patient they can't immediately diagnose, get triggered. Their fear of imperfection threatens to overwhelm them.
They respond by projecting their uncomfortable emotions onto the patient. They tell themselves that the patient has a functional or psychosomatic illness, and the physician's discomfort is intuition telling them so.
This effect is greatly magnified if the patient is female, BIPOC, LGBTQ, etc. And even more so if the physician is not.
Most physicians practicing now seem to be completely ignorant of how a single hint at functional disorder in a patient's chart can lock that patient out of receiving any medical care for any illness, for decades.
Delaying care for serious diseases in this way can destroy a patient's life -- causing them to lose their job, for example, when very treatable symptoms make them unable to work.
Is this emphasized in medical schools yet?
We need to reward physicians-in-training for saying, "I don't know" and then going on to find out.
This this issue is especially relevant now, when the CDC says approximately 100 million Americans have post-covid health issues -- most of them with heart symptoms, either of unknown etiology or poorly understood diseases such as POTS.
Perfection is in the mind of the beholder. What matters is what is helping other minds. And as Voltaire said, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."