“Decision Fatigue” a poem
“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.
Listener Poet Beck Klassen
Association of American Medical Colleges
March 2021
Decision Fatigue
My professional voice
Makes choice after choice
As we descent 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
