My Dad's Advice

Today is my dad's 70th birthday. He retired this year, after 41 years of practicing medicine in my small hometown of Melrose, Minnesota, and then more recently in St. Cloud. Words can't articulate how much he has influenced my life. The most important advice I've ever received has come from him. When I was a kid, he would tell me, "If you can wake up and love going to work in the morning, you're truly blessed." Those words have stuck with me throughout my life, and I am grateful to him and my mom for empowering me to follow my heart, no matter how crazy the path.

On his last day of work in September, he shared the following list of lessons with his family, friends and colleagues. With his permission, I'd like to share with you, as we leave a tumultuous year behind us and strive for peace and prosperity in the 12 months ahead. (Yes, these tips are meant for healthcare professionals, specifically, but many of the lessons can be applied to nearly any other job or industry.)

Time-tested advice from Carl Melling, M.D.:

1. Some problems don’t need solving.
2. Some problems can’t be solved, but a provider can still walk alongside a patient to ease their journey through life.
3. There is a fine line between helping to solve someone else's problems and codependency. Corollary: The patient is the one with the problem (The House of God).
4. Patients aren’t addicted, borderline, somatizing or obese because they set out to be. They don’t show up at your clinic to make your life miserable. They are genuinely hurting. They may be subject to genetic or social factors you don’t know about or have difficulty understanding. Try to consider their non-compliance or maddening behavior as an interesting facet of their human condition.
5. The most powerful tool a physician has is their emotional connection with a patient.
6. Medicine is difficult. It can eat you alive if you aren’t careful to balance your personal and professional lives. Don’t expect anyone else to do this for you.
7. Be prepared for the day you realize you screwed up and your patient suffered or died because of it. It will punch you in the gut. It will question your competence. It will make you think of NOTHING ELSE. It may make you want to quit medicine. All providers will have to deal with this at some point in their careers. Making an error does not make you a bad person. If you think you’ve never screwed up, you are not self aware and I would not want you to care for me.
8. Nurture a non-medical interest – a hobby, an individual or family activity that you really enjoy. It should require enough attention that it will take your mind off work.
9. Don’t be afraid to add new skills to your practice. Learning a new procedure or a different aspect of medicine (mine were: resident education, addiction medicine, gender medicine and wound care) can keep your work fresh and add a revenue stream.
10. Any symptom above the waist is a pulmonary embolism until proven otherwise.
11. All bleeding stops eventually.
12. You will forget most of what you learned within 10 years. The good news is that almost everything you learned in medical school and residency, except anatomy, will be outdated or wrong in 10 years anyway.
13. Ask for help when you need it. Sometimes ask for help even if you don’t need it – for practice.
14. Don’t wish your life away. Try not to focus on distant goals. Remember, it’s not the destination – it’s the journey.