PROFESSIONAL LIFE
• Remember that your merit is not binary. One
mistake in a career of lives saved and bettered
does not make you a bad doctor.
• Understand resiliency is an action, not an
attribute. You are not “born brave.” Small, everyday
acts of courage build your strength, one molecule
at a time.
• Create a personal narrative that embraces a growth-
based mindset. You are a work in progress—always.
So is everyone else.
• Don’t strive for perfection. Understand that letting
go of the need to be perfect does not equate to
lowering your standards.
• Create good habits for positive self-talk. Surround
yourself with people who will hold you to it.
• Break up with superstition. It perpetuates the idea
that your actions can prevent bad things from
happening to you, and if bad things do happen,
you’ve done something wrong.
• Explore your “bone pile.” Take a look at those cases
and mistakes that haunt you—but don’t live in it.
Understand the events are in the past, but what you
can learn from them can stretch far into the future.
• Remember that every fail safe was born out of
failure. From calculators to childproof lids to traffic
lights—these things exist because someone lived
out their worst nightmare and decided to make the
world a safer place because of it.
• When it comes to processing our own failures,
understand that it’s not just about learning to move
on, but about learning that we are fallible, that
effort, merit, failure and worthiness can all exist
simultaneously in the same beautifully flawed,
complex human being.
One thing I tell my daughters when they experience
fear and anxiety about the unknown is to find
someone who looks more scared than you. Help that
person feel at ease. Help them feel less alone. More
than likely, the things you tell them are what you need
to hear yourself.
As someone who has marinated in my perfectionism
until my toes got wrinkly, this tactic has helped me
have a healthier outlook on mistakes. I share my bone
pile with my colleagues. I tell them about the things
that scare me. I tell them about the near misses. I tell
them about the patients that still twist up my insides at
3 in the morning.
The best part? Instead of responding with silence,
judgment or shame, more often than not I find they
reach back out to me and open themselves up in
return. Even more amazingly, they will often then
share their own suggestions for getting through those
cases, or talking to those clients, or moving on from
those heartaches. And in that moment, the world feels
a little smaller, a little safer and a little kinder. It’s the
kind of world that a profession full of perfectionists
and self-critics deserve to spend a little more time in.
References:
1. Scott SD, Hirschinger LE, Cox KR, et al. The natural history of recovery
for the healthcare provider “second victim” after adverse patient events.”
Qual Saf Health Care 2009;18(5):325-330.
Subscribe now @ R360 a year
Vet360 subscribers receive
Excluding VAT
5 Copies of the Vet360 magazine delivered to your postal address
Access to Vet360 CPD Multiple Choice Questionaire (NOT included in the free VetNews insert copies)
Full online access to the Vet360 magazine - download the Vet360 Free App from the App or Playstore
Access Free CPD Vet360 Webinars (View at http://vet360.vetlink.co.za/vet360/)
+ EXTRA BENEFIT - CPD UPDATE SERVICE
Subscribers pay only an additonal R300 per year for our CPD PROFILE update service - personal assistance to
update your CPD profile on the Vet360 profile for electronic upload to your SAVC CPD profile.
Access your CPD profile through website portal
(http://vet360.vetlink.co.za/)
New CPD update service available
We will assist you to complete your CPD points on your
profile ready for electronic submission to the
SA Vet Council Contact us at [email protected]
Vet360 App &
New CPD Profile Update
Service provided by Vetlink
POWERED BY
Celebrating 20 years Est: 1999
Issue 02 | MAY 2019 | 17