I didn’t understand that open channels would replenish my supply of self. I don’t know if I fully believed in that model, but until my own experience as a patient, I didn’t allow myself to envision an alternative where I was unguarded, receptive and freely giving of myself. As if I were made of some quantifiable measure of stuff that once given away would leave me depleted. I was taught that connection begets loss, which in turn begets disillusionment and burnout. I had subscribed to the paradigm of medicine set forth by my mentors, one that advised me to cultivate space, to be sparing of myself. I had distanced myself from my patients the way I had been instructed to do in training, in the same way the team was doing now. It is the most important thing to attend to and we are constantly dismissing it, pushing it aside, whether it’s our own suffering, or the patient’s suffering, or our family’s suffering. The omnipresence of the suffering makes it the easiest thing to ignore. It is there in every patient, every family member, and within ourselves and our colleagues. Medicine is a culture that does not indulge suffering, though it is everywhere. She sets up her book on the early acknowledgement that in our training, we are trained to push aside suffering to help the patient.
Through sharing her personal experience as a patient, she reminds us of the importance of seeing the humanity in each and every person we care for, and provides a blueprint for us to find our better selves. Awdish has more than showed up through her writing when she cannot control the outcome, she has used her experiences not only to transform her own life and practice as a physician and educator, but also to provide a foundation to help transform the lives and practices of fellow health care workers as we strive to better understand suffering, our role in the lives of our patients, and in the lives of those around us during our journey on this Earth, in general. It’s having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome (from Dare to Lead, by Brene Brown). Brene Brown defines vulnerability as “the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” As Brown says, “vulnerability is not winning or losing. Awdish in overcoming multiple adversities in her physical healing, but the strength of allowing herself to be vulnerable. By writing this book, the reader, I believe, needs to appreciate not only the strength of Dr. In her book, she not only shares the physical experiences of this metamorphosis, but the impacts on the mind and soul that this has had on her as an ICU physician and as a human being. Rana Awdish’s book, In Shock, in which she shares her experience going from a critical care physician to being brought back from death and resuscitated in the OR and coming back from that experience in the Intensive Care Unit, and going back to being an ICU physician again.
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