“Decision Fatigue,” a poem by Beck Klassen
“I feel like I have decision fatigue,” she told me.
It was normal for her to make many choices at work, but COVID had dramatically increased the number of medical decisions she had to make at home.
She was the only medical professional in her immediate and extended family, so everyone looked to her for medical decisions, especially now.
Many of these choices were difficult and emotional, and many carried consequences for herself, her husband, and her three children. It was exhausting and overwhelming to deal with all of the decisions that were falling (rightfully, but still) on her shoulders.
Beck Klassen, Listener Poet
Association of American Medical Colleges
March 2021
Decision Fatigue
My professional voice
Makes choice after choice
As we descend into the unknown
It’s the right thing to do
But it’s difficult too
Deciding things all alone
My normal decisions
Are made with precision;
The guidance of our past
Now every assertion’s
Emotional exertion
Makes me wish it were the last
“The fact of my life is a miracle,” she told me. Living with multiple chronic illnesses, this patient spoke to me of her journey with alopecia. Of how, in witnessing her body transformed by the condition, she continues to move at once through grief and reclamation.
“I can’t see a future outside of our relationship,” she tells me, “but I also can’t see a future outside of residency.”
“I always believe, no matter what the doctor says, that I will be cured,” she says as her sister sits next to her.
“I wonder if these medical professionals, in caring for people who face such insurmountable odds, walk around all the time carrying this weight I’m hauling now.”
He had been trying to cope with the grief ever since and was on a quest for soul-searching and meaning-making.
She spoke about the ways this traumatic event shaped who she is today: a person with an “unshakeable peace” born of deep faith,
She wanted to help people feel comfortable and transform the shame around colon issues. "I want to talk about things that matter, the things people don't want to discuss.
When we met, she was coming off a stretch of nine 14-hour shifts. She was tired but in good spirits.
She reflected on how her resilience was born from moments of shared mirth amid life's trying chapters.
“Life is complex and dirty, but digging in is important to me,” she said. “Maybe if more of us understood history, we could understand each other better.”
We are expected to research, contribute to scholarship, earn grants – all on our own time.
We are expected to research, contribute to scholarship, earn grants – all on our own time.
Every day, I try to see through the patient lens, and I ask: what can we do to change this broken system?
She was very proud of her daughter and has hopes for “a bright future that’s as pain free as possible”
“I’m trying to focus on doing little things to make people feel better during everything that’s going on in the world,” she told me.
“It’s hard to see others struggle,” she said. “How can I help with their struggle without struggling myself?”
"I'd tell her it's OK to be loud...it's OK to challenge and to bring all of you into these spaces where no one looks like you..."
“I'm continuously questioning: did I do it right?" she said. "I’ve always done a good amount of second-guessing, but I’m re-learning how to show up differently.”
“It’s weird,” she said. “This is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
"It changed me; It changed the way I look at life," said this woman about her profound experience during her pregnancy.
