Dean's Update | May 2021
Lessons from a pandemic. Do any of mine match yours?
1. Plans are good, but so are reasons to change them.
I confess I’m a bit of a planner. I’m not good at turning up somewhere new without first checking out a map of things to see and making an itinerary. This year, the School team’s plans have needed rewriting again and again, yet in the midst of them rose opportunities for new ideas: a Dragon’s Den, ‘top tips’ mini lectures, Zoom wellbeing appointments, catch-up portfolios for missed time, Zoom year drop-in sessions and lots more.
If you are a ‘ducks in a row’ person like me, the changes and uncertainties of this year may have been challenging, but I hope you can also think of things you did that were different to the normal ‘plan’ yet surprisingly OK, or even fun.
2. Joy is always there if I look. It might not find me, but I can find it.
There have been a lot of personal ups and downs for all of us this year. Yet for me, tragedy has shone a light on the importance of noticing, now. The sun on my face after 10 day’s quarantine, proper coffee, birds nesting in an old urn, my son’s attempt at a cake (it tasted good whatever), and this week - a pink stethoscope!
My stethoscope of 30+ years finally came apart and I needed another urgently for a clinic. Things have changed since I last bought one and they now come in colours. The pink one made me smile. Initially I thought, perhaps my senior colleagues would think it was not ‘proper’.
But then I thought, who am I kidding? After 30+ years, I am one of the ‘senior’ colleagues!
So, pink it now is and I reckon my patients might smile too.
3. Being with people is precious and is worth time.
Before the pandemic, I might have gone months between seeing friends and thought nothing of it. We all understood as we have busy lives. Now, the pleasure of a weekend walk, with a close friend who I had not seen for over a year, brought home to both of us how important booking time for connection is.
It may not be as vital to you, when you are not as ‘senior’ as I (see above), but I regret not using the gaps in my rotas as a junior doctor to keep up with friends and drifting to the ‘Christmas card list’ as a result. I have blamed all the usual things -of moving area, babies, study for exams etc, but it was really a matter of prioritising time for these fragile connections.
I hope you will always take medicine and your studies seriously, but I hope you will also prioritise connecting with key others.
Perhaps, as we approach the end of an academic year, and ponder what the next might bring, we would do better to stop focusing as much on planning, find simple joys, take the time to connect properly with the people in our vibrant, resourceful and committed community, in the School and around it, and cherish the support found in those connections.