Sometimes failure leads to success My mother recently had a pacemaker inserted to help stabilize her heart rate. As an oculoplastic surgeon, my cardiology knowledge is, shall we say, limited. So, of course, I turned to "Dr. Google" to learn more about pacemakers and the procedure. Imagine my surprise to discover that the pacemaker was invented purely by accident in the 1950s. Wilson Greatbatch was an inventor who was building an oscillator and reached for the wrong part. After his gadget was assembled, he noticed that it emitted an electrical pulse. Two years later, an implantable pacemaker replaced the former apparatus that was as big as a TV and gave people a harsh shock when they were out of rhythm. The road to success often begins with failure and, it could be argued that we only improve when we work through challenges. I'm sure you've known people who seemed to waltz through their medical training and then cratered as they entered their practice. And perhaps you've seen others who struggled like lobsters crawling out of a lobster pot for years who then plopped into their medical practice with more success than one could imagine. What is the difference between those who rise above failure and those who don't? Well, if I could totally answer that question, then I would be the perfect admissions officer for all medical schools and residencies, and perhaps even help in guidance for some political offices. I think one of the key factors is to acknowledge and allow for failure as an acceptable part of life. My personal road to medicine was not traditional, by any means. I started out with a master's degree in sociology. In my first real job, working with the elderly people of Virginia, I realized that I yearned to help older people in their quest for improved health in a more meaningful way. When I called my parents to tell them I was going to go to medical school, there was silence on the other end of the phone. And then my dad said, "That is the dumbest idea you've ever had. And we do not support you on this. At all." So much for parents wanting their children to grow up to be doctors. In my parents' mind, I was a "failure" because I was changing my career and I had not started in medicine from the beginning. And yet, having that negative voice in my head, as I made it through my medical training, helped me push forward. Because, like many of you, when someone says, "You can't," I say, "Oh, yeah?!" Having a perceived "failure" of not being an early decider on a career in medicine helped me realize that I was stronger than I knew. In Sasha Shillcutt's recent TEDx talk, she describes the "Art of Failing Forward" and how important failure is for growth in medicine. In fact, Zwack and Schweitzer, in 2013, identified one of the main factors for resilience among physicians in what they describedas the "margin of failure." It turns out that when physicians accepted that they would fail at some things, and cut themselves some slack, they became more resilient. Many of us would be hard-pressed to view failure as a positive thing in our medical upbringing. We don't want to admit failure to our colleagues, our families, and especially, ourselves. Giving ourselves "permission to fail" may be the key to overcoming the devastation that we often feel when we approach retaking our boards, revising surgeries in the operating room, or altering medications on compliant patients who are not improving. Part of growing up, and part of learning, is being able to recognize our mistakes. An even bigger part of expanding our world is learning from our mistakes. Sometimes that happens quickly, like the time I yelled at a nurse in a rather rude way to get me an important piece of equipment, as I struggled in the operating room. Her tactic was to simply stop and give me the cold stare, knowing that she held the power in that moment. That led to me immediately realize my mistake and self-correct my path. I apologized for my rudeness and rephrased my request. The desired equipment was then delivered to me post-haste. Crisis averted. Lesson learned. We need to step back from the fear of failure and know that at every corner, a tiny window of failure may emerge. We must move forward. Feel the fear. And do it anyway. And when failure happens, maybe we can take small comfort in the story of Wilson Greatbatch and his accidental and miraculous pacemaker. Source
