Wise Wednesdays

When I was a medical student at Cambridge, I remember being introduced to teaching by humiliation - an old fashioned approach probably more suited to self-entitled heirs in the Establishment than insecure, second generation female high achievers with a touch of imposter syndrome. While I wouldn’t recommend it as a learning method, the optimist in me found some useful elements in it. For example, it pushed me to challenge my assumptions and develop critical reasoning skills. In fact, the Four Stages of Learning model describes learning a new skill as a set of psychological shifts that enable progress from incompetence to competence. It requires a lot of humility as you let go of what you thought you knew, realise how much you don’t know then overcome the shock to build new knowledge. In fact, a psychoanalyst once said that: “Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem”. Don’t misunderstand me, I would nev...

Have you ever had these thoughts? “Something isn’t right but I can’t put my finger on it” Or “I know things have to change/I need to do something but I don’t know what to do” I’ve been there and done that. It still happens to me, although less often than before. I remember the first time I started contemplating the possibility that my career track wasn’t right for me anymore. It was three years ago, I’d finished my PhD funded as a full Clinical post through the Wellcome Trust and had my junior doctor (Specialist Registrar) post in Public Health waiting for me.  Many career options were available: academia, government, think tank, intergovernmental (WHO), etc. Prior to this, I’d always charted a course well in advance, ticked all the boxes, cleared professional exams and connected with all the right people. I was a doctor and emerging public health specialist with a pretty good brain, a brimful of passion and doing all the right jobs to get to the...