{"id":1359,"date":"2019-08-08T19:22:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T09:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thejugular.org\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2026-02-06T00:19:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:19:04","slug":"a-medical-students-take-on-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/2019\/08\/08\/a-medical-students-take-on-vulnerability\/","title":{"rendered":"A Medical Student’s Take on Vulnerability"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>5 Minute, 21 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

by ELEANOR HALL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bren\u00e9 Brown says we should all be vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nwhat does it mean to be vulnerable? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is\nthere a place for her teachings in medicine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019d asked me last year what vulnerability was, I would have said \u2018giving someone else power\u2019 or something about weakness and loss of control. Vulnerability certainly wasn\u2019t a positive thing and definitely not something I was inclined to do by choice. Admitting to being vulnerable was admitting to a weakness. It\u2019s the reason why most of us say “Yeah, everything\u2019s good,” when people ask us how we\u2019re going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only in the last couple of weeks that I listened to Bren\u00e9 Brown, a social scientist, speak on Under the Skin<\/em> (Russell Brand\u2019s podcast), that I realised how much vulnerability might play into the lives of medical students. She described vulnerability<\/strong> as uncertainty, risk<\/strong> and emotional exposure<\/strong>. Its killers: perfectionism, numbing (using alcohol, drugs, food or work to deaden true feeling) and foreboding joy<\/strong> (an inability to tolerate joy\/always worrying how it might be taken away) \u2026 things I\u2019m beginning to realise are all too common in medicine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I distinctly remember attending a \u2018breaking bad news\u2019 session in third year. It was actors living out the different reactions of grief to a diagnosis. \u201cNo problem,\u201d I thought \u2013 I\u2019m good at histories. Then I walked in and I couldn\u2019t explain it, but everything around me dropped and I felt it. The pain. Not a punch landing, but a deep sadness that I thought I\u2019d shaken.  It catapulted my mind into memories of someone lost. I saw for a moment my family distraught, the anger, but most of all, that emptiness that never really goes away, that you\u2019re reminded of acutely in moments when you least expect. I started to cry, in front of my classmates, a physician and an actress. I was really, really vulnerable, and in that moment, it wasn\u2019t a choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the session I remember being embarrassed. What the hell had come over me? I didn\u2019t think the loss was still raw. I definitely didn\u2019t think I should be reacting that way. Maybe part of it was knowing how death has a way of fracturing reality, because it changes the people you love and in turn changes you, and you\u2019ll never look at the world in quite the same way. The reasons didn\u2019t really matter, I was emotionally exposed<\/strong>, and it felt terrible. Yet I\u2019ll never forget what the physician said to me after: \u201cIt\u2019s powerful knowing. You can give that gift to people\u2026 that you know, and you understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re often reminded not to\novershare, to listen to patients but desensitise ourselves \u2013 protect ourselves.\nYou can\u2019t let patients in or you\u2019ll burn out. But I\u2019ve come to believe that\nmedicine requires us to understand the patient as a person, and you can\u2019t do\nthat without connecting as a human being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncertainty<\/strong>: Fun when we\u2019re\nwatching The Bachelor, terrifying when we\u2019re walking into a clinical exam. Uncertainty\ninvaded my brain in third year. I spent multiple nights lying awake, worrying,\nfeeling like I would never know enough. All the while, people told me not to\nworry, that I was great, that there was no chance of me failing. So, I learnt\nto push my anxiety inwards, letting it out in little bursts, alone, or at times\nwith family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then\ncame exam day; fear and uncertainty were intertwined. The stakes felt so high.\nI knew I\u2019d done the work, but the stress of what I could lose kept taking over.\nOn that day, in my ICE exam, it spiralled. I felt like the world was slowing,\nthat I could see something slipping away but I couldn\u2019t grasp it. It wasn\u2019t\nterrible, but it wasn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nI failed. I failed my ICE. And right up to the point of hearing the news, do you\nknow what I was most worried about?\nShame<\/strong>. I had never failed before. Not at anything. Not once. People would\nsee me differently. I would be a failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bren\u00e9\nBrown describes shame as playing two lines in our heads: \u201cNever good enough\u201d and \u201cWho\ndo you think you are?\u201d. They tell us to doubt ourselves. Shame makes us uncertain<\/strong> and it stops us from taking risks<\/strong>. It\u2019s also unsurprisingly linked\nto addiction, depression, aggression, suicide and eating disorders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nway out of shame? Vulnerability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nreally struck me during that period, and even now, is that medical school tries\nvery hard at teaching you to succeed, but never tells you how to handle\nfailure. I think that\u2019s why so many of us are afraid \u2013 you don\u2019t broadcast your\nfailures, you broadcast your successes. I remember meeting my ILP supervisor at\nthe beginning of fourth year and admitting that I had had to pass the Supp exam\nbefore I could start researching. My face a strong beetroot colour, as I waited\nfor him to shoot me a disappointed glance. Instead, he said, \u201cYou\u2019ll be fine. I\nfailed a bunch of exams and I\u2019m a consultant!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas astonished. He always seemed so competent, so put together\u2026 Yet here he was\nnormalising failure. That\u2019s just it, no one failure is defining, I\u2019m still\nhere! In fact, it makes us reflect and grow, and I\u2019m more resilient for it. I\nwas vulnerable with friends, I let them in, and they lifted me up. And a few\nmonths later, I smashed my ICE supp, because I was able to view it as an\nopportunity as well as a normal part of life and I didn\u2019t hide it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nwe could all be more vulnerable, readier to share failures and accept them in\nothers, we could reduce the shame that comes with not being perfect. Sometimes\nwe fail. Sometimes we\u2019re in a bad place. But stoicism and refusing to discuss\nour vulnerabilities blocks candid conversations about mental health, as well as\nproductive learning. \n\nI used to imagine\nbeing a doctor and reaching a point where I knew the answers, where I didn\u2019t\nneed help. But I\u2019m beginning to realise that point doesn\u2019t exist. We\u2019ll always\nbe a little vulnerable. It\u2019s time medicine started embracing it. \n\n\n\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“If you\u2019d asked me last year what vulnerability was, I would have said \u2018giving someone else power\u2019 or something about weakness and loss of control. Vulnerability certainly wasn\u2019t a positive thing and definitely not something I was inclined to do by choice.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5747,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions\/5747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jugular.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}