My idol

Well, that’s a bit of a strong statement because technically I don’t “idolize” anyone, but there is someone whom I hold in the highest esteem and is the epitome of the kind of physician I hope to be someday. Her name is Rachel Naomi Remen. She’s written a couple (or more) books, two of which I’ve read and continue to reread whenever I need a little reminder of why I’m doing medicine anyway (like during exams when I haven’t poked my head out into the world outside my apt for days at a time). I’m not sure how/why I stumbled upon it, but in December of last year she was interviewed for an NPR radio show which I found online. Over the last week in snippets of time I managed to listen to it. She talks about her work, how she came to do the work she does now (which is largely working with burnout physicians and people dying of cancer), the organization she started called Commonweal and the coursework she started with medical students and doctors called “Healing Art" & "Finding the meaning in medicine”. Here’s the interview in case you’d like to listen to it. In it, she talks about the power of listening and how, while curing is left in the hands of experts, healing happens between humans with no special skills except their inherent humanity. She says that a lot of what she does in her work with health care professionals is remind them of that – of the power of just being human, and being fully present with people and how healing and meaningful that can be for both patient and physician. At the end of the interview, she tells us a story about a workshop she was doing with medical students in which they write a mission statement/goal about being a physician. She shares a poem written to that end by a male medical student that I found really powerful. It went like this:

May you find in me the mother of the world May my hands be a mother’s hands My heart a mother’s heart, My response to your suffering like a mother’s response to suffering, May I sit with you in the dark like a mother sits in the dark, May you know through our relationship that there’s something in this world that can be trusted.

I wish she taught her course at my school. In the meantime, I’m crossing my fingers that one day I get a chance to do a workshop with her or even just hear her speak. She is an immensely wise and compassionate woman – a true inspiration.