“I know ‘vibe’ is kind of a nonspecific term, but I think about people’s vibes all the time,” he said.
“Sometimes you come into a room and it’s just off. Sometimes you can be working with a person for a whole morning and you don’t even realize their vibe is bad until something happens and they blow up.
“A person’s vibe has a butterfly effect. This morning, I assigned one of my team members to be my substitute charge nurse, which he’s not used to doing, and I was worried he was going to protest. He just looked at the schedule, saw the assignment, and got to work. It was such a relief. The day’s going so much smoother than it could have for everyone, because I don’t have to devote my brainpower to accommodating resentment over that assignment.”
Vibes were a significant force in successful communication, he said. “You need to communicate differently with someone depending on their vibe. And believe me, all of the fires I have to put out are because of bad communication.”
Listener Poet Frankie Abralind
Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital
January 2020
Vibes
To look at someone’s face
(They sweating cuz they’re drowning?)
It’s hard to gauge their space
(Unless, of course, they’re frowning)
Communication wins and loses
More than people think:
Each joke, each arching eyebrow,
Each high-five hand, each wink—
The vibes that you are part of
In others, me, in you
Make ripples, make tsunamis
Throughout everything we do
“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.
“It’s been more challenging than normal lately,” she said. “I’m only one person. It's a struggle for me to say no, but I can’t do everything that’s being asked of me right now.”
"I've been processing how to make the most of the small amount of life we have to live," said this physician.
"I've been processing how to make the most of the small amount of life we have to live," said this physician.