I know you’ve answered it a hundred times, especially if you’re coming off the heels of interview season.
However, as you stand at the doorstep of the next stage of your career journey, take a moment to consider how you arrived in ophthalmology.
My journey started in 2000 when I pulled my 1977 VW bus off the road to pick up an abandoned backpack. I’ll talk more on that later.
Reflecting on how you arrived at your particular program at this specific time will take you back to discrete turning points along your path, like picking up a book or hearing a lecture. “How” may stir memories of an interview you nailed at your program or one you bombed at another. It will undoubtedly include encounters with mentors, advisors and helpful peers.
Regardless of how you’ve arrived at this moment, it’s certain you never planned for it to look exactly the way it unfolded. Likewise, as you look toward the next stage of your journey, you can’t predict what lies ahead or where it will lead. However, you can stack the cards in your favor to find joy in the journey and success in the destination.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. — Steve Jobs
Don’t weaponize email. Never email while you’re angry. Just hit save and sleep on it. Many of life’s apologies can be traced to rage writing.
“Help me understand.” We are good at assuming we know what others are thinking; it’s one of the mental shortcuts we use to make sense of people’s actions. However, evidence is clear we are awful at it. Asking someone to help you understand allows you to learn something new, shows them you care and is a better start than, “What the hell are you thinking?”
Comparison is the thief of joy. Need a boost of confidence, score 50th percentile on OKAP’s and have it be the highest in the program? Of course, that same score hits different if you’re the lowest. You will not be good at everything and will always find someone in the program better at something. Some of these will be shiny (OKAP scores, extroversion, surgical prowess) and stand out more than others. Your value is unique and not measured by anyone else’s scores or talents. You made it this far; don’t let comparison steal your joy or confidence in being your unique, fantastic self.
The “and” stance. Reframe negative characteristics and behaviors using “and” instead of “but.”
Example: “My program director is a great resident advocate but is too busy to find time to meet.”
Instead say, “My program director is a great resident advocate and is too busy to find time to meet.”
Subtle, yes, but this reframes your comments more positively.
Assume goodwill. People are great, sincere and endearing in some ways, and the same people are insecure, frustrating and annoying in some other ways. As humans, we are wired to assume ill will of others while giving ourselves grace and understanding for our same shortcomings. It is so pervasive that the concept is called the “fundamental attribution bias” in social psychology. When someone in your life falls short, give the grace you hope to receive when you’re in a similar boat.
Now back to the year 2000. The backpack I found belonged to Devin Griner, a student at the University of Utah (whom I also met six months earlier in Rostov, Russia). I gave him a ride to his job at the Eye Institute of Utah, where I was offered a job as an ophthalmic scrub tech and where I scrubbed in on cataract surgeries with Alan Crandall, who 10 years later taught me cataract surgery in residency … and eventually became my faculty colleague at the Moran Eye Center.
We can’t predict our paths, but we can trust it will work out in the end and fill the journey with joy and meaning.
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Jeff H. Pettey, MD, MBA, is the vice chair of education and program director at John A. Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City, UT. He is also president of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO) Program Directors Council.