It's nice to have a straightforward identity. I always thought of myself as a trainee physician; it's a role I've been working at for years. It was simple and, in a way, reassuring. It gave me a framework to structure my life, to decide what to spend my energy on, who to spend my time with and limited my fear of missing out.
But I don’t think that reduction of identity is real. There have been a few episodes in my life that put this narrative into question. It started with losing parts of myself that did not fit. An example is when I became distant from my artistic side, ignored hobbies and became estranged from family members. I found that whenever I spent time, effort and money on things that weren’t medicine, it made me feel guilty. The fatal blow to this view was when I got married and had a daughter. I assumed new roles that I could not ignore.
My immediate reaction was trying to deny this challenge to my identity. Something was standing of the way of me living as I was, as I always saw myself. I was now responsible for spending time and energy on other roles, those that did not directly feed my image as a physician. This was a perspective that will make me fight against myself forever.
But that was not the only way. I could also choose to see that I am more than one thing. In fact, I’ve always been more than one thing, and I actually utilized the skills I developed in other things outside of medicine.
I am a good and compassionate listener to my patients, partly because I practiced filling that role with my closest friends. I write detailed coherent notes partly because I spend a lot of time reading books and writing in my journal. I can easily navigate the electronic health record, managing and organizing patient data partly because I spent a lot of time tinkering with computers. I am able to recharge myself outside of work partly because I spent time appreciating the beauty life has to offer, be it a subtle instrument that I didn't notice before in my favorite song, the taste of a cup of coffee by an open window at sunrise, or the way light and shadow frame a picture by one of my favorite photographers.
Engaging in life outside of medicine has made me a more complete human and, perhaps secondarily, a better physician.
Postscript: I stole this title from one of Sherlock Holmes’ short stories!
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