Heroes Not Zombies

What is this?

Seriously, I have no idea! I took this photo just over two years ago but I don’t remember it! I’m not sure if this is a rock, a tree, a fossilised tree, a fallen Roman column…….there are elements which make me think of all of those.

But you know what? That makes this more of a mystery! And I love that! Well, actually, even if I knew what it was, there would still be plenty of mystery. More than what is it, how did it come to be this shape, and how did it come to be lying there? And here’s another one….is that a cave entrance under there? It looks like one.

We humans have a bit of a penchant for mystery, don’t we? Put the word “mystery” in the title of a book, a movie, or an article, and people will be enticed to check it out.

I think curiosity might be my strongest characteristic. I am unceasingly curious. As a child I remember getting two different “part works”….magazines which came out once every couple of weeks, and which you collected together into special binders. One was called “Knowledge” and the other was “Look and Learn”. I loved them both. When I graduated from university with my medical degree, with my first month’s salary as a Junior Doctor, I bought a complete set of “Encyclopaedia Britannica” (It’s in the attic! Can’t bring myself to get rid of it even though I use Wikipedia and all the other internet sources to go exploring these days).

I think this same characteristic contributed a lot to the kind of Medicine I practiced, to the way I worked as a doctor. I always looked forward to meeting the next patient, to hearing their story, to unravelling the mysteries of their illnesses. I loved making diagnoses, and I still believe that skill is THE key skill of a doctor. Without a good diagnosis, you’re stuffed! You can only find the treatment which will work best for you patient if you make a good diagnosis.

AND it doesn’t stop there….because how each, individual patient will respond to this particular treatment is a mystery. We don’t know. Nobody can accurately predict it. Will this person get the benefits that “most” people get? Will this be the person to suffer a serious side effect? Will this person find that this treatment actually does nothing for them at all? The only way to know is to stay curious, to follow up, and to listen carefully to what experience the patient has had since this treatment was started.

You’d be amazed how often that is neglected. A distorted use of “Evidence Based Medicine” claims absolute truths where the doctor thinks they know better than the patient what benefit the patient will experience. There are no absolute truths. Evidence changes all the time….informed by more experiences, more experiments and more studies. Treatments are always context-dependent. Two patients receiving the same treatment may well have two diametrically opposed outcomes.

We have to stay curious.

We have to retain our delight in mystery. And, here’s the paradox, we have to keep trying to discover, to learn and make the best decisions we can in every present moment.

There’s a humility which comes with curiosity and mystery. A humility which is the result of realising that there is always more to know.

So, now, bring all that to this pandemic. How many times have you heard the word “unprecedented” in relation to this disease? Over the course of this year we’ve developed our knowledge and understanding of this virus. Learning how it behaves, how different people respond to it, how we can influence the spread and the patients’ responses. And we are far from done yet.

All that can feel a bit more like frustration and uncertainty rather than mystery and curiosity can’t it? I think that’s true. I’ve experienced, and continue to experience, a lot of both frustration and uncertainty these last few months. But hey, you know my “and not nor” theme, don’t you? I think BOTH of these themes exist – mystery and uncertainty, curiosity and frustration. Becoming aware of them is the first step. Learning how to respond to, and adapt to, them, is the next.

So, I’m reflecting on this today and maybe you might too……how am I responding to the uncertainties, and how might I adapt better to them? How am I responding to the mysteries, and how might I make the most of them?