Doctoring in Tortoise Mode

Some days as a clinician are challenging and test our limits. Many of us find comfort in flipping through a saved folder of treasured thank-you cards or in my case, children’s drawings. The visible gratitude of the patients we have helped strengthens the call to this caring and demanding profession.

But a calling can evolve. After 10 years of clinical practice, I got sick. Really sick. I spent two years bedbound, undiagnosed, and incompletely treated. My delayed diagnosis was in part due to dismissal and disbelief while I experienced mistreatment. This period was full of pain, frustration, and grief at my loss of function. It would be understandable if I pulled away from my medical peers in disillusionment. But, I haven't lost faith in the goodness at the core of most physicians. Once diagnosed and treated, with new lessons learned from the patient's side of the bed, I returned to share my journey and perspective with the medical community.

In my new life, I had to unlearn some of physicianculture's central tenets. My view of my quality of life as a now-disabled person is not diminished by my inability to do some basic tasks. I work to live the best life I can within the strict limits I have been dealt with. I learned to rest before hitting overload status. Now, due to my myasthenia gravis, I literally and symbolically walk through life slower. My husband affectionately calls this "power tortoise mode". I take time to enjoy the smaller and slower moments and observations. My new mantra is described well in Ron Bell's poem, "Walk, Don't Run", "But walking, which leads to seeing, now that’s something. That’s the invitation for every one of us today, and every day, in every conversation, interaction, event, and moment: to walk, not run. And in doing so, to see a whole world right here within this one."

My life has evolved into a new calling. Rather than treat patients one by one, I speak to physicians and trainees about mindfully treating the disability, chronic illness, and undiagnosed community. Although my new road is challenging, and I travel slowly, it brings me joy and satisfaction to bridge the patient and doctor worlds.

Heather Finlay-Morreale, MD is a patient, physician, writer, artist, and advocate. She is an assistant professor of pediatrics at UMass Chan Medical School. Email: finlaymorreale@gmail.com

Upcoming Program:

Meet the Author Series

May 21, 2025, 5:30 p.m.UMass Chan Medical School

Facilitator: Lucia Knoles, PhD, Professor of English at Assumption University and a Board Member/Summer Instructor to the Worcester Clemente Program, with a panel of contributing authors