"A Good View", a poem excerpt
When we met, she was coming off a stretch of nine 14-hour shifts. She was tired but in good spirits.
She shared that she was nine months into a three-year emergency medicine residency and was known as a positive person. She spoke of being warned not to lose positivity or let burnout get to her. A colleague once asked, "Have you always been like this?"
When asked what she wanted the poem to feel like, she said she wanted it to reflect a positive approach to negative emotions.
"I want it to represent how hard, beautiful, and worth it this journey has been,something to look at in the 2nd year. Something that says you did the emotions, hadthe emotions, now don't change!"
Listener Poet D’ete Blackshire
KNN Residents
March 2024
A Good View
Everyone tells you what not to lose I rarely hear how to keep it.
I hear how to armor my humanity before stepping into a patient room.
But how wise is it to brace against negative outcomes?
I care for the sick. I won’t keep it a secret from me.
If I hide my humanity, then I miss being human one of many. I miss Mom's first look at baby and Dad's first look at Mom. I miss looking into the eyes of the husband who just lost his wife of 57 years.
Each moment
is a celebration of life.
Even when there's pain
I don't have to suffer.
It's a hurting experience and that's not bad.
Life is more than the aches we encounter.
I value feelings
and claim them all
with a promise
to never change
to always bring a piece of myself
in the room
for every patient I see.
I hear my inner guidance. It says, feel emotions do emotions cry, laugh, run, release.
Have a glass of wine with the sunrise after a long night shift and toast the rising sun
and the setting stars.
Justice is sitting on the horizon.
And with a tender eye on what makes me human
I approach my heart to say I'm doing Good Work.
There could be a hurting experience
but that’s not bad.
