shout out to teachers

Being September, I’m thinking about teachers.
          I was at a medical conference and the speaker’s topic was clinical teaching. Most of us in the room were world-weary medical teachers, but some were bright-eyed new grads looking for ideas, inspiration, or advice. The interactive question posed by the speaker: “tell the people at your table about a moment when a teacher made a big difference for you.” You’d think the incident would be a life-or-death situation, a huge, serious event, but immediately I thought of Dr. Hope.

I worked at a family medicine clinic as a second-year student, and the doctor allowed me to do a pap test on my own. {For the uninitiated, a pap test involves inserting a metal or plastic speculum into the vagina to provide a view of the cervix (the tip of the uterus) and then sampling some cells looking for pre-cancerous changes}. In this case, I could not find the patient’s cervix. I moved the speculum side to side, further in, further out, opened it, narrowed it, nothing. The patient was being very, well, patient, but we all have limits to someone poking around in our vaginas. I was mortified approaching my preceptor, expecting myself to be skilled at this procedure I’d only done a few times. I was sure she’d behave like many other doctors, with irritation or frustration at the time I was wasting.
          “I’m so sorry, but I can’t find her cervix.” I cringed, following her back into the exam room with my head down. She closed the door, turned to the patient, and said to her,
          “Well? Where on Earth are you hiding your cervix?” We all burst out laughing, she helped me find the cervix, gave a few tips for future use, and that was that. How wonderful, to see humour used in such a situation. The relief was immense, and the learning significant.
 
I feel like we all have such moments in our past. Not everyone enjoyed school, or performed well, but so often there’s that teacher, not heroic or Earth-shattering necessarily, but who explained something in the perfect way, asked about us at just the right time, or went the extra mile coaching a team or organizing a musical. Think for a moment: when did a teacher make a big difference for you? I’ll bet there are instances that come to mind. Do we thank them? Did we thank them? I know I thanked my preceptor at the time, but maybe I should do so again now that I’m remembering it thirty years later (thanks Dr. Hope!). There are so many examples in my pre-medicine life as well.
 
As a female MD, I did hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pap tests. I taught many, many students how to find the cervix. Imagine my happiness when one student said to me, “I used your technique and it worked! It changed my life!” We fist-bumped, laughing, and I thought of my own experience and the perfect circle that had occurred.
 
Take a moment, think of a teacher. Thank that teacher. Then, pay it forward. Think how wonderful this cycle could be.