The Scientific Journey
By admin. Filed in mentoring |Tags: academic mentoring, anaesthesia, anesthesia training, benefits of mentoring, communication skill non-verbal, doctors training, medical education, medical school education, mentor, mentoring, non-verbal communication, professional mentoring, success, success secrets
To continue with my story….
It is now 1987 and I have just graduated from the University of Melbourne and have now earned the right to add the letters M.B.B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) behind my name. I have worked hard and now I am called Dr. Anne even thought technically speaking I’m not a real doctor. A real doctor has completed a PHD.
The medical course in Australia is six years long. The first 3 years are called the pre-clinical years and they are spent at uni studying the basic sciences such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology. After 3 years of being a normal uni student we continued our medical education in the public hospital system. We still had lectures and tutorials but we also learnt about illness and disease by studying real patients. We learnt how to talk to patients and examine them so that we could, from their symptoms, diagnose their problems.
I was fortunate to meet my husband Michael when I was doing my 2nd year at uni and we married before I finished my studies. During my 5th year as a medical student a new system was introduced. As well as all of our regular tutorials, we were assigned a mentor for the year who we met with on a regular basis and we were able to discuss career options and ask any questions that we had.
This was my first exposure to a mentor and I found it an invaluable experience especially since it was my mentor who suggested anaesthesia as a possible career for me. There are many benefits to anaesthesia not the least of which is an ability to control one’s own work-life balance.
The importance of a good mentor in all aspects of life cannot be emphasised enough. As I embark on my new endeavour of virtual education I have been told many times, find someone who is already successful and model them. There is also a strategy to getting a busy, successful person to become your mentor. You can’t just call them and ask them. Firstly, you probably wouldn’t be able to get past their gate-keeper and secondly if you asked them upfront to be your mentor they would probably say no they are too busy. The key, as always, is build a relationship first, take it slowly but do everything with intent. Then, before you know it, you have the mentor you always wanted.
So after discussion with Michael, I decided to aim for anaesthesia as my career. It was not a decision that we made lightly because post-graduate medical training is long and arduous. For anaesthesia one has to complete a minimum of 2 years as a hospital medical officer before one can be accepted into the anaesthesia training program. There are a limited number of training positions in Australia so sometimes there is a backlog and it takes even longer than that to begin training. In my case I did 3 years as a resident medical officer in the public hospital system before I embarked on my anaesthesia training.
When I had just graduated from medical school and began working as an intern in the public hospital system at the ripe old age of 23 it seems like almost every patient was asking me if I was really old enough to be a doctor. I found this to be mildly insulting as I thought that after 6 long years of study no-one had the right to doubt my qualifications.
It was a gradual process and it wasn’t till a couple of years later that I noticed that no-one had asked me in a while, was I really old enough to be a doctor. Upon reflection I came up with an interesting learning. At 25 I’m sure I didn’t physically look any older than I did when I was 23. There were certainly not the fine line and grey hairs that have to be hidden today. I wondered why people no longer thought that I was too young to perform my job. I guess it was the way that I approached my patients that was different. You see, although I didn’t look much different I had seen and experienced a lot over those first couple of years and it was reflected in my confidence and the way I appeared to people. I’m sure that my communication skills had improved out of sight!
We just don’t realise how much of our communication is non-verbal. In my current job as an anaesthetist many people think that I don’t need good communication skills because most of the time that I spend with my patients, they are unconscious but on the contrary I need to gain someone’s confidence in me in a very short period of time. Therefore I need to be a master of communication both verbal and non-verbal.
During my early years as a doctor there were several people that offered me very timely advice and I’m sure that those helpful souls don’t even remember what they have done but I will always remember their acts of kindness.
The best piece of advice that I ever got was from Michael – Never make the same mistake twice.
I have lived my life by this motto.
It can be turned around in other ways….
There’s no such thing as failure only feedback…
Success comes with failing longer than anyone else (just ask Thomas Eddison)
More about focus and perseverance – 2 keys to success next time.
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