farmdoc's blog post number 328

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I worked in Hobart. I found the work there difficult: the people I assessed were medically complex, and they were less than totally helpful. So the going was long. And tough. At the end of those two days I felt wrung out. Dispirited, too – beset by apprehension that my medical skills weren’t up to the task. Simultaneously, Sweetheart Vivienne was fraught by uncertainty about her writing ability. I easily saw her misgivings as baseless, yet I couldn’t dismiss my self-doubt about my medical prowess. That night we watched two episodes in Series 5 of The West Wing. The character Josh Lyman (pictured), who’s arguably the most politically savvy of all President Bartlet’s senior staff, is sidelined due to what was perceived as a failed act of political brinkmanship. Then, when the President is unsure how to proceed in another political power play, Josh is summoned. He devises a strategy which is brilliantly successful, so resurrecting everyone’s confidence in him, and adjunctively uplifting both the President’s self-confidence and his public approval rating. This caused me to take a reality check on myself, and I decided that if I had difficulty with the people I assessed in Hobart, then every other doctor would probably have equal or more trouble with them. You can’t keep a good man down. I felt much better. Thanks, Josh.