Old Dog, New Tricks
I was listening to the wind outside my window tonight, and it reminded me of how there is always change; a change of weather, a change of season, or a change in life.
I am in the midst of change.
It is amusing how we try to fly into the wind, like a kite that gets pulled tightly against it, only to be pushed back in the end.
Wherever the wind goes, that is where the kite must relinquish its wishes.
Sure, it may dip and twist, pull ahead at the tug of the string, and fly, momentarily, where you want it to go, but it must obey the wind and find its designated spot -- a spot where the nature of the wind dictates.
The kite feels like me today.
As many of you know, I am pursuing a different path in life (one quite different than what I am used to), and it is difficult to say where the wind is taking me.
Getting exposed to and learning a new way of practicing Medicine has been both a joy and a challenge.
Why, at my age, should I embark on such an educational journey? Is it to heal others or heal me?
Or it could be both.
I loved aspects of acute-care Medicine, but in the ER, it often was hurried and impersonal.
I frequently connected with those I cared for, but it took a lot of work to get to know them meaningfully.
That is what attracts me to Functional Medicine.
Today, Dr. Guarneri was particularly remarkable in the virtual conference on Cardiometabolics (a big title to describe how the heart and body's metabolism are intricately woven).
Her lecture was "Maintaining the Heart in Medicine: The Art of Compassion in Health Care."
It was a lecture full of life, love, and warmth and resonated with the audience.
The focus was on keeping the soul of healing. It is a quest that has been particularly difficult as Medicine becomes increasingly regimented, more algorithmic, and focused on moving people through the system.
This change is notably more apparent in the current medical environment of limited access, telemedicine, arms-length examinations, emotion-masking personal protection equipment, and broad-based fear.
We are facing a critical medical path, a path that might lead us away from why many of us in Medicine chose to be a healer.
Dr. Guarneri eloquently highlighted the problems, the impediments to compassionate care, and the pressures to become impersonalized in our practices -- the inevitable tug against the kite string.
Just as I felt that this was to be the new norm of our profession, she turned it around and deftly painted a pastoral landscape of medical practice that had warmth, caring, and mutual sharing as a given and not lost hope.
The soul of Medicine is not lost but altering form.
Functional Medicine is the new change; it is the best of the past, but the intellectual advancement of the future. It is the pull of the wind. It is what I hear outside my window...