As the lone fellow in the hospice and palliative medicine fellowship, it can get kind of lonely sometimes. This is especially true when it comes to me having to present case conference each month. There are many cases when I feel like the cases I have to present are too simple or not what are expected of me to present. I am left trying to scrap together a presentation that may not fit what should be presented. I feel guilty, like I'm letting down the fellowship director. The fact is, I'm likely putting too much weight on what I'm doing. I want to be able to stay on as faculty, and because of this, I feel like I always have to be on my A-game. That the days I'm not on my A-game, or I do my best but it's not enough, will be held against me in my ability to graduate fellowship and get a full-time job after graduation. I set the expectation bar far too high. So high that there is probably no one out there that can hit it, let alone me. I need to come to the realization that I am good at what I do, I will always be learning something new each day suntil the day I die, and I need to cut myself some slack. Impostor syndrome likes to drag me down.
In other news, I registered for the AAHPM annual meeting, including a pre-conference event directed at narrative medicine. I am excited to find some many lectures at the conference devoted to narrative medicine. It will be a great jump start to the curriculum for the geri-pall fellows. Plus, it will hopefully give me some contacts in the field who I can reach out to when I need some guidance, ideas, or topics to discuss. My goal for the curriculum is to have it more interactive, and eventually have it be something that involves the interdisciplinary team, not just the fellows. That's the pipe dream anyway. For now, I am going to learn as much as I can from the experts and make as many new connections as possible. I need to start utilizing the mentors I already have...
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