Perfection

When I was working at the consulting firm, my boss at the time, one of the best mentors I've had, gave me the following advice:

You have to be perfect all of the time. You can do a really good job, the best job of anyone around you, but if you make one small, inconsequential mistake, and that will be all anyone will remember about you.

Nowhere is this more true than in medical school. The only problem is that when you're learning something new, perfection is almost impossible to attain. Especially when you're operating within a time constraint.

When you're doing your core clerkships, not much is expected of you.* You really don't have to do much other than show up, pay attention, and answer a few silly questions correctly in order to be thought well of. If you miss something on a presentation, it's ok because people expect med students to forget things.

Now that I'm on my electives, I feel that not only am I expected to know things, but I am also given actual work to do, which I LOVE. But the only problem is that I feel like everyone expects that I do it perfectly. Or well, do things at least as well as the residents do.

This is actually impossible to do. And the result is that I feel incompetent constantly. I usually do better by the end of the rotation, but since I know that most people tend to fixate on the negative, and because their first impression is of me making a mistake, I worry that they all think I am stupid.

And then the next rotation starts and I get to feel that way all over again.

I am really tired of feeling incompetent all of the time.

I think the kicker is that I know I can't talk about this with any of my classmates because I can just imagine them nodding sympathetically. Like it never happened to them. Like they can't relate at all. And they'll say something faux-sympathetic like, "That must be difficult for you OMDG," and you know they're thinking in their heads YES!!! OMDG messed up! Awesome! I WIN!!

(Can you tell I've been feeling alienated lately?)

I really want to learn to be a good clinician. The sucky part is that I can only do this by trying and then falling on my face. I just wish it didn't mean that I have to look like an incompetent fool once a day or so.

As to whether that's really happening? I just don't have any faith that they'll be able to remember what it was like when they wore the short white coat. I have too much real world experience to believe that anyone can actually do that. And who knows, maybe I do really suck at this.




*The exception to this is during the medicine rotation on which you have your first real job ever, and are assessed on your ability to be as good as the attending.