| OPINION |
To Be a True Healer, Be True to Yourself Trust Your Unique Abilities and Intuition
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Photo: Wikimedia Commons
ecently, in the opening session for the Healer’s Art course I have been involved with for four years at UC Davis, I started by asking questions. What sacrifices did you make to enter the path of a life of service? What parts of you did you suppress or what activities did you put aside since you started medical school? Does it seem to you that you are disconnected from your core and essence at times? Have you muted unusual ideas or beliefs because they were not “scientific” enough? Did you change the way you talk, dress or introduce yourself? If so, how do you feel about that? Does it feel harmonious, or does it bring you away from who you really are? In 1996, I started medical school in Montreal, Canada. The first to enter such a path in my family, I had no road map for what was to come, but I was filled with hope and confidence as I saw we had finally overcome the gender gap (which I didn’t put in those words back then) because the class was 60% female. There were also Asian students, a few students of Haitian and African descent, and other minorities. Diversity was natural. Yet, sooner or later, subtle manifestations
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—regardless of whether it is in English or French—doesn’t have all the answers. 8
Sierra Sacramento Valley Medicine
By Caroline Giroux, MD cgiroux@ucdavis.edu
of a clash with older generations of doctors occurred. About approaches, conceptualizations, gender roles, the interplay of race and illness… Despite it all, a familiar echo of deep knowing was there, within, trying to guide me. The DSM is not the whole of human experience. The one symptom-one pill approach doesn’t seem right. I can’t pinpoint why yet, but I believe this patient needs to go to intensive care. Maybe, like the younger me, you have heard that inner whisper, but your attempts to follow it are ridiculed. You don’t even know there is a word for this: micro-aggression. And because you feel alone in your reality, you start wondering, “What’s wrong with me? I must have gotten into med school by a stroke of luck!” I never did the Healer’s Art course as a student. I wish I had. I would have needed it as a validation for my experience of the imposter syndrome and as a reminder of the moral imperative for self-care. Such a course is a good reminder that self-care is not selfish, but necessary if we want to be responsible and attuned doctors and also if we want to maintain joy in our work. It took me many years to understand this. Even two years ago, the last time I co-led this course, I was still improving, recovering from the years-long shock and disillusionment about our socially unjust health care system, the fragmented approaches, the corporatization of healing. I was barely starting to catch my breath, believing I have a voice and should use it more, along with my socio-cultural advantage, to serve others. But then the pandemic hit. Contagious fear made me lose my balance. Gradually, I rediscovered my anchors. First, my breathing, which links body and spirit, often disconnected after trauma. Then, yoga, as a spiritual and general wellbeing practice, even if only 15 minutes per day. I felt I was mobilizing energies better. Energy, or