S3E13: Finding Stability In Medicine

Harjit: This is yours. This award is yours.

Leen: That's why she has it above her desk.

Harjit: That's why she kept it. Hi, y'all. This is Harjit. Leen, stop.

Leen: I'm sorry.

Harjit: Hi, y'all. This is Harjit. This is "The Bundle of Hers." Why did I do that?

Leen: I don't know, but I'm not joining in. You're alone in that.

Harjit: That's fine. We also have your fave girl in the studio, Leen Samha.

Leen: Hi. I'm finally back.

Harjit: I know. This is your episode . . . what? Number two?

Leen: I mean, glory has to start from somewhere, so . . .

Harjit: She's just saying that she's fancy and been doing other things. That's why she hasn't been able to record.

Leen: Yeah.

Harjit: We're recording this podcast, and something that I've been thinking a lot about is the lands that we've been recording on. I just want to recognize the Eastern Shoshone land that we record on. I know it's Salt Lake City, but before that, it used to belong to the indigenous people. So I just want to recognize them and respect what they've given to this land so we could be here today.

Leen: Absolutely. I agree 100%.

Harjit: Thank you very much.

I'm in my fourth year of medical school, and I remember when I first applied to medical school, I always thought the hard part was getting in. I think that's kind of the consensus all pre-meds have, that once you're in medical school, even though it's going to be very difficult, everyone is going to become a doctor.

I think that thought comes from, yeah, there's a low dropout rate, but there's still not a surety that you will become a doctor. But I didn't realize that until I got into medical school.

Like I said, it's my fourth year already, and there are points in my life where I feel like, "Oh my goodness, will I match? Will I finish my coursework? Will I become a doctor?" I never have felt a sense of stability in medicine, a stability that, "I will stay here and I will complete this journey."

I know there's always an idea that will happen, and there are moments where I feel really stable. I will say when I interact with patients, that's a feeling that I get, like, "Oh, this is really who I am. This is where I feel the most secure." But that thought has never gone away.

So I wanted to talk to you about what you think the roots of this feeling are, and why we struggle with that. Is this something you struggle with, or is it just me?

Leen: No, that's very insightful, Harjit. Thinking back now, I think my entire life I've always thought, "I'm not going to be smart enough to make this class." And then from that class, "I'm not going to be smart enough to get this grade." Then from that, "I'm not going to be smart enough to finish college, and I'm not going to be smart enough to finish my degree. I'm not going to be able to get into med school." I think for me part of that doubt was along the way I had many people tell me I couldn't do it.

Going into medicine, from day one, they're telling you, "This is the score you need to be able to do this. This is what you need to do to be able to do this. You have to study all of this to be able to do this." They implement the doubt in your brain from day one.

Coming from a baseline of already we're insecure because we don't see the people who've made it . . . they don't look like us, so there's already that baseline insecurity we have. Then we place that doubt on top of us. I think it builds our anxiety throughout the four years probably more than most.

Then even in fourth-year, now it's very crucial where we're thrown into the whole match system. So here you are and you're like, "Okay, you built your application. You've built who are you. You're presenting who you are to different people."

Harjit: You passed all your courses.

Leen: You passed all your courses, and yet still, you're sitting there and you're saying, "I don't have enough interviews. It's probably because I didn't do this back then." Now I'm starting to think, "Oh my gosh, I'm not going to match. I've come this far and I'm not going to be a doctor." Every stage of med school, there's always something.

And so it's weird, but I think for us, especially because we do not see an end goal for us because we don't see anyone like us at the end goal, we don't know what the end goal is. We don't know if it's success or if it's failure.

Harjit: Yeah, it's us basically creating our path as we go.

Leen: Exactly.

Harjit: And that in itself is very . . . excuse me if this doesn't make any sense, but an avant-garde thought, something that's so out of the realm of what we're used to. You're like, "I don't see that." Any place where there's a chance you have to take, there is instability.

Leen: Exactly.

Harjit: So maybe you do need those risks to create the biggest things that you can. Maybe we're walking a powerful path, but right now we're scared.

Leen: One of my biggest outlets when I'm really stressed or scared or anything like that is I write. I remember I was writing something along the lines of . . . There's this metaphor we use in medicine that you're in a tunnel and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some people say, "The light at the end of the tunnel is a freaking train."

But I was thinking as I was writing this poem, and I said, "The light that I see at the end of the tunnel is actually me looking back at the fire of my passions, and that's what's pushing me forward." It's actually shining the light into this new exploration that I'm doing in this new system of caves to get to whatever ending I find.

When you talk to patients and you're able to connect with patients, that reminds you of how much you were meant to be here. It gives you that spark that you're going to be a doctor. I think that's very important for us who don't ever have that . . . we don't have an answer to the end. We don't have the "X marks the spot" on our map, right?

Harjit: Yeah. Those are the external factors, but just internally, I immigrated to this country from Punjab, India. That whole process of moving from one land to another can be very destabilizing. You're totally uprooting your community, your culture, your languages trying to reestablish yourself in a new land. That process can take a big toll on your own self-esteem and self-confidence.

That's another reason why I've struggled so much with feeling secure. It's because I always feel like I can lose anything at any instance. That thought, for me, is very hard to grapple with. What would I do if I didn't complete medical school? I need this degree to feel independent as a Punjabi woman, I need this degree to get the power to do the things that I want to do, and I need this degree just as something that will provide more knowledge to me.

A lot is hanging on to my passion of becoming a doctor than me just trying to find a career to work in. This path for me means so much more. Like I said, I feel like it's my calling in life.

Just from a faith-based perspective, I identify as a Sikh, and I really believe we all have come to this earth to accomplish something. I feel like this always makes me feel at home when I'm practicing medicine. This is the reason I'm here.

I've worked my whole life towards this. I have a lot riding on it, so that might be another reason why I think so much about the stability that I feel like I have in medicine.

Leen: I think that really goes back to our upbringing as well. What you said about being uprooted and constantly being worried about losing what you've gained and also worrying about what else you have to gain in order to be independent and things like that, I think that very much speaks to home for me.

Basically, I was raised with the idea that nothing can ever . . . you can't rely that everything will be stable. Especially being a minority person, being someone who's underrepresented, coming from a country where it's actually happened where we have been kicked out, and seeing the results of if you were educated, you were able to make it in a different country, and if you weren't, you're still in refugee camps to this day 60 years later, that really embeds this value within us as Palestinian-Americans, and even just Palestinians anywhere, that education is so important for us. You have to hold that degree because that's going to be your stability no matter what happens.

I can't speak for everybody, but I feel like that puts a pressure on us, more so than maybe other people have, to fight and want this so badly. It makes us so worried if we're going to lose it, so we must always tell ourselves, "We're not going to make it," to keep pushing us to remember that we have to make it.

Harjit: I actually think that's interesting you say it like that, Leen. Are you saying in some ways that insecurity is a good thing for us because we're pushing harder?

Leen: I think it's a reminder that we can lose it. I think often people forget that they can lose it, but that's never the case for us. We always think we have the possibility of losing everything. We don't just walk through life saying, "Oh, we're so happy. We're never going to lose anything." That's definitely not a reality for us, right?

Harjit: Yeah. Maybe this kind of thing helps strengthen our courage and us being brave. I do see that because . . . I see my sisters, right? They've been able to achieve so much with their education, and I think it's because they've always had that thought.

I want to move this discussion along further. How do you think we can counteract that insecure feeling and build stability in medicine? I know we only have a couple more months in medical school, but then, inshallah, we'll get into residencies . . .

Leen: Inshallah.

Harjit: . . . and we'll get jobs. How are we going to be more confident that this is a place that we need to be and feel stable in medicine?

Leen: Honestly, for me, I get that feeling when I mentor those who are in earlier stages of where we were at that have similar backgrounds to us.

Harjit: I feel like sometimes I force upon my mentorship to people too. I'm like, "You're not going to ask, but let me tell you this."

Leen: Yeah. "Don't do this, because I did this and that didn't work," or something like that. I feel like it's our role at that point to give back, to give better mentorship to those who come after us. That always gives me more stability saying, "Wow, look, now I'm actually helping someone through this process, which means I've done it myself and I've done it successfully."

Harjit: Which means I must know something.

Leen: Which now I see the light in myself, right? It gives me that idea that I've made it, at least.

Harjit: Yeah. I really relate to that point, Leen. For me, I always remember how my insecurities were built, and I try to think about those things and be aware of them so I don't bring those same types of thoughts in my current day life.

The second thing is to always remember that, like I said before, this is my path. I've thought about this a lot. I've really, really critically thought about why I'm going into medicine and why this is basically the career for me. I always remind myself that if I am so passionate and in love with medicine to the core values that it has, that has already built my scaffold of stability.

I have something always to hold on to, always to remind me that there's a reason I'm going through all of this heartache. It's to, in the future, give to my patients a perspective that they probably would have not received because we are all different and we all have our own perspective. If there wasn't a Harjit Kaur doctor, then that never could have been provided.

I'm not saying that, again, as an egoistic thing. I'm just saying as an individual. We're all individuals, we're all unique, and we have our own thought processes for solving problems.

Leen: Yeah, that's why diversity of thought is so important, as well. First of all, nobody's brain is wired the same way, technically. But at the same time, there's a background that created these synapses, or whatever we're going to call them, that is different than maybe other people usually have. You get diversity of thought in that aspect, right? Does that make sense?

Harjit: It does completely.

We're specifically talking about medicine, but a lot of people struggle with feeling stable in their current career path or educational path that they have chosen. I have found it very helpful to basically build and create community with others that struggle with that stability, too. When you're in something together, you already feel a little bit more stabilized.

I've been in situations where I was afraid of, say, a friendship that I had. But if I had other friends to talk about it with, I felt a little bit better. In that same way, I think it can apply to our careers. Find a community that will build with you. That will allow you to feel a little bit better, like, "I can do this. I can make it through this."

My community, for sure, in medical school has been "Bundle of Hers." It's been Bushra, Leen, and Margaux always telling me, "Why do you think that way? Why do you think you can't do that? Why do you think that this score matters? Why do you think that you are less than anybody else? You are not." I think that's been something that I've always held on to.

I've also learned to, like I said before, process my trauma and process my feelings of not feeling secure in other arenas of my life so that I can feel more stable in medicine.

With that, I feel like this year has been very, very transformational for me. I won't say I am fully confident, but I've grown a lot as a person because I've had time to examine why I feel the way that I feel.

Leen: I completely agree. I think finding a community is very helpful. It's easier said than done, of course, especially if you study or work somewhere that oftentimes maybe your community is not available in that sense. But I think it's very important.

That's one thing I learned on my away rotations. Thrown into this new place, I actively looked for my community, and that's what really helped me continue to see myself succeeding in that place.

Harjit: Feeling stability not only in medicine but also our personal lives, it's been something that I hoped more people would talk more openly about so we can actually start creating environments that build security.

With that, I think we're pretty much done, yeah? Yeah, bro?

Leen: Yeah, bro. I think you're totally right. I think it's something we're going to continue to struggle with, but we'll struggle gracefully through it. I think we're doing an awesome job. We made it to fourth-year.

Harjit: Woop woop. We're going to be doctors soon. Oh my gosh.

Leen: On top of the amazingness, we won an award. Check out our Boomerang on Instagram. I don't think it's going to be up by the time this episode comes out, but hey.

Harjit: Look at our highlights.

Leen: Oh, okay. We'll put it there. One of the best healthcare podcasts in the nation, people.

Harjit: Boo-ya.

Leen: Thank you. We couldn't have done this without our listeners. This is all for you, people. This is all for you.

That was my acceptance speech.

Harjit: I approve of this acceptance speech, Leen.

Leen: Harjit approves of this message.

Harjit: Say bye-bye and follow "Bundle of Hers."

Leen: Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and all those cool social media places at Bundle of Hers. We appreciate your feedback and all your outreach to us. We love hearing from you. It really continues to also motivate us and keep us going through the wonderful time of medical school.

Bye-bye.

Harjit: Bye-bye.