Knowing the "enemy"

“To win, one must master one’s enemy…”

So goes the “Art of War”. And, so did one particular attending physician at work, who I had a run-in once or twice…

It’s funny, that it is only just now that I have had to realize this very important “survival” tip… and all this time I have been thinking that Pediatrics rotation was such a heavy cross on my back. (Well, it was, until about 16 hours ago, at least.)

This particular Attending was the consultant assigned to handle our morning endorsement conference (she had peculiar ways that she expected everybody to stick to). She’s somewhat of a tough cookie, who always wants to get her way.

And, I had specific instructions not to “ask questions” and to “Speak only when I was spoken to…” this morning. Haha… it made me feel like they thought I was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was pretty miffed at the start. Afterwards, though, I realized that “going with the flow” was a necessary “evil”…

Since everyone “went with the flow”, and did things the way she wanted them to be done, (she gave me plus points for having the UST handbook for history-taking), she ended up happy and contented. And beaming.

Which was, generally a good deal. Now, since she was in a good mood, the residents were in a good mood. And since they were a good mood, that made everything flow smoothly for us interns, and maximum learning was possible...

Everybody was happy.

Lol.

Taking all that into consideration, maybe it works to handle pressure differently, and to deal with things from a different angle. And take a different approach, if you know what I mean. Things don’t have to be shitty if we all work together.

And so, I hereby repeat…

Know your enemy.

(Because let’s face it, a little less stress in life, especially mine, is very, very welcome. :-p )

And, post-script, she was so happy, that she started inviting us to apply for the pediatrics training slots available after we’ll take the boards. Haha.