Preachin’

I try to avoid this sort of thing but if you’ll stick with me, I’m going to try to put it to good use. In the way that some people like to sing in the car, I like to imagine giving speeches and sermons. It's a bit self indulgent, but this one had a few gems in it and no one was around to hear except the dog, so I decided I might have to write it down. I use italics for my preacher voice…

“When is the last time you touched a homeless person?  A methamphetamine addict? When is the last time you spoke with a prisoner? An illegal immigrant?  When is the last time you saw a baby born?  A child die?  When is the last time your hands were warm with blood?  When was the last time you were expected to save a life and failed?

Everyone has unique experiences that are worth learning from. Each of our paths in life are so different and so full of bizarre unexpected twists that we all have important stories to tell each other.  At this point in my life as am emergency room doctor, I have spent a lot of time backstage in the human theater and I desperately wish that I could communicate some of the things that I have seen.  I have been taught lessons that were paid for in human suffering and the more I can share those lessons, the more the price makes some kind of sense.

Everyone ends up in the ER. It’s the subway terminal of suffering for all of humanity and you never know who you’ll meet there. And one of the best thing about being an ER doctor is that everyone I meet there wants to tell me something very important to them.  We get to jump right past the chit-chat and get to some real shit.  When people are hurt and need help, they look you square in the eye and speak very plainly.  It is a privilege to meet strangers in this space.  And what it has taught me, consistently, is that we are all more alike than different.

We all want to protect our children from suffering.  We all change forever when disbelief becomes belief in the face of death.  We all need our family. We will all be surprised by pain at some point. We will also surprise ourselves at what we will do to get out of pain. People who don’t like each other work together well when lives are at stake.  We all break easier than we think.  Knowing what to do, and doing it, are very different things.  We could all spend more time remembering how fragile life is.

Any and all of these commonalities matter more than our pride or our desire to be taken seriously.  Most of us are doing the best we can with what we know and what we have.  The first step in being taken seriously is laughing at yourself.  We have to realize that we are all more alike than different. Give up needing to feel right; it just keeps us too busy fighting and distracts us from doing what needs to be done.  And there is a lot that needs to be done right now.

Please face the truth with me; we are all more alike than different.  We don’t have time to waste pretending otherwise. Our families deserve better. “