How to be a positive deviant
Performing well is something expected of all within health care. Yet this is expected of human beings who bring all their frailty and fatigue, as well as their expertise and skill, to their jobs each day. We cannot be perfect, but the desire and the will to perform well each day sit with us all.
In Atul Gawande's book Better, he examines how diligence, ingenuity and the desire to do right are required in any endeavour that involves risk and responsibility. He had me in the introduction recounting a scene many of you will relate to and one I've seen played out many times. He is reassuring and honest in his descriptions of attempts to maintain hand hygiene, is frank in his accounts around the death chamber, and many of you will relate to the experiences of theatre scheduling.
"Betterment is perpetual labour. The world is chaotic, disorganised and vexing, and medicine is nowhere spared that reality.
To complicate matters, we in medicine are also only humans ourselves. We are distractible, weak and given to our own concerns."
While I heartedly recommend you read this book, I know time is short. He concludes in an Afterword: Suggestions for becoming a positive deviant. And these are doable for us all.
Ask an unscripted question
You start to remember the people you see, and the machine feels less like a machine
Don't complain
It's boring, it doesn't solve anything, be prepared to discuss something else (even the weather)
Count something
If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting
Write something
What you write need not achieve perfection. (This blog and my emails are me doing my ‘write something’ )
Change
Look for the opportunity to change, recognise the inadequacies and seek out solutions.
Atual Gawande has written a number of books and I picked up another one of his last weekend. There is also a TED talk, he is measured, deliberate speaker with a passion that cuts through to the why of why are all here.
