On white coats, success, and failure

It's funny how sometimes the most useful and profound statements come from unexpected sources.  Christian Borle (of Broadway fame) one said that the best advice he was ever given was "Other people's successes are not your failures."

Today was my baby (she's only three years younger than me) sister's first day of medical school.  For anyone familiar with the medical professions educational system, with the first day of school in a medical profession comes something called a "white coat ceremony."  The white coat ceremony is intended to welcome new medical students into the medical professions.  There's a lot of pomp and circumstance (speeches and such), but the main event occurs when an actual licensed medical professional puts a white coat on the new student.  It's a very exciting time for everyone, especially parents and the incoming students.

Now, for weeks I have known of the coming of this event.  My family has been talking about it since January.  They all came home for it-- including my grandmothers.  We planned to attend together and then go for dinner.  The whole shebang.  So, since we've been talking about it for so long I've had a lot of time to think about it, and the more I thought about it the more reasons I came up with for why the ceremony is a bad idea.  I have lots of theories (read opinions), especially coming from a profession (psychology) that is so grounded in an understanding of power differentials and humanism.  When I thought about a white coat and what it symbolizes, I wasn't too  impressed.  What I concluded was that white coats are intended to define a power differential (those are never good), intimidate patients (they increase anxiety in patients), inflate egos (of the medical students), and celebrate something that has yet to occur (the whole ceremony is celebrating the fact that the students are simply at the school...I'm not sure they've earned the pomp and circumstance).

Well, being that I am the person I am, I shared these thoughts with my sister and parents.  Bad idea.  Of course my sister (who was about to participate in the rite of initiation) and my parents (who are both medical professionals who wear white coats daily) were not receptive to my thoughts.  But, that didn't stop me.  For six months I rattled on about power differentials, and patient care, and patient anxiety.  And I stand by those statements.  They're all true.  But today, as I rattled on about them while sitting in my seat before the ceremony itself, my mother called me out.  Said I was being too negative.  Said it sounded like "sour grapes" (which I assumed meant that she thought I was jealous).

Well...being called out made me think about it. Made me consider what my actual opinion was about the whole white coat thing.  Was I really arguing on the side of justice or was I jealous?  The words coming out of my mouth said one thing, that I was speaking out against an injustice, but my feelings, when I really dug deep, said another thing.  I realized that while I was saying that white coats are bad for patients and lack meaning, what I was really feeling was that I didn't like that a bunch of students were being recognized for making it to graduate school, when I never got the same recognition  making it to graduate school.  Future doctors get pomp and circumstance, but future psychologists get dropped of at the front door and fed a free sandwich for lunch.  And that's not fair.  That is an injustice.  But the problem isn't that my sister and other medical students get recognition for their hard work.  No, it's that other graduate students don't. And that's not my sister's fault, or anyone else's fault in the medical professions.  It's the other professions who are dropping the ball and not appropriately welcoming their students.

After concluding all of that I realized that Christian Borle's words were completely accurate.  My sister's successes (and her classmates) were not my failure.  Them getting accolades and recognition did not mean that people do not also think that I deserve those accolades and recognition, they just don't give them so outright to me (not that I should really feel the need for them).

I am not a failure simply because I don't wear a white coat, or walk across a stage, or get a fancy dinner.  While white coats do represent (at least in part) other people's successes, I've realized that they are not intended to represent my failure.

Keep on thinking,
Josie